


Patched Up

by shionz



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Fae & Fairies, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Ice Skating, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Meet-Cute, Misunderstandings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25718251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shionz/pseuds/shionz
Summary: “Do you?!” Victor exclaims because,does he, like,actually? Has heseenthe sublime being that is Yuuri Katsuki — the wondrous, captivating fairy with wings as blue as the sea and eyes a matching depth?… Or has he just heard Victor wax poetic about the man one too many times? Whatever.Or: Five times Victor needs an excuse to talk to the town's fairy repairman, and the one time he doesn't.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Victor Nikiforov, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 65
Kudos: 215





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by the lovely tendouz (❁´◡`❁)

  
The blades of Victor’s skates hiss across the ice like a whispered siren’s song — tugging him this way and that, luring him from one end of the rink to the other. The rink is near silent besides the mumbling voices of the other skaters around him, but he tunes them out with ease, letting his chosen music play smoothly in his head. 

He transitions swiftly into jumps and spins, feeling the ice cold winds shoot out from his palms to propel him further, light bursts of snowflakes trailing behind him as he glides. Victor always feels the delightful thrum of magic in his veins no matter what ice he steps foot on — but there’s always something more intense about his home rink.

Maybe because it’s his territory. This is the ice he grew up on — the one that gave him that initial rush of _true_ love for figure skating; one that wasn’t just due to the stories he’d heard about his parents’ past careers. If he focuses hard enough, it’s like he can feel it for the first time all over again too. Only six years old, an ice conjurer teetering on rented skates like a newborn lamb as his mother led him closer to the rink. That first touch of blade on ice was as shocking as it was comforting — like he was being wrapped up in the coldest and most loveliest embrace; the most familiar hug from a feeling so new.

He may have been young, but with that feeling alone — suddenly everything made sense. The ice was where he belonged, and he never wanted to leave. 

He picks up speed to prepare for the next move: a simplified version of the spin first introduced to the skating world by his mother, years ago — the move he’s since picked up and made even more impressive with time. He can’t do it completely now, no matter how badly he wants to with the tingling of magic pounding away under his skin, yelling at him to release it because he _knows_ he can — but the last thing anyone needs right now is Yakov having a stroke from the sidelines during practice today, so he holds back.

With a flick of his wrist so subtle nobody but him would even notice, he leaps up and yanks a spike of ice right out of the rink floor, hopping onto it gracefully with a quick spin, bouncing off, and doing it again further down the rink — each spike growing ever so slightly as he goes. 

It’s far from the single, massive pillar of ice he does in competition, the one he plans to pull off at the festival this summer as well, but Yakov always tells him he needs to hold off on those until just a week or so before the actual performance. Doing it too often will strain not only his body, but his magic — and there’s no way he’d be able to pull off such a risky move when he’s not at his strongest; it’s better to just build up to it.

He still hears the music in his head now, the intensity and volume rising to emphasize his rapid movements before it eventually slides down to something more soothing as his last step sequence before his _own_ signature move takes place at the very end. 

His heart rate quickens with every twist of his body and each _clink_ of his skate making contact with the ice — he couldn’t contain the blissful smile on his face even if he tried. Not when he feels so in tune with his powers, like he has complete control over the ice around him and feels that pleasant tug in his limbs with every spike he pulls out and every burst of snowflakes he releases.

He’s gone through three of the small spikes now, and only has another three to go before he’s filled up the space in the music where the real spin will take place to fill it completely… but something feels off. 

He notices it right away after he lands the third one, gliding down the rink to build some momentum for the next; he feels shaky. Whether it’s his body — jittery with the feeling of being so connected to his magic but not being able to do much with it — or his skates, he’s not sure. But he definitely wobbled. Victor doesn’t _wobble_. Especially not during a move he’s done a hundred times before.

Which is why he pushes past it and prepares for the next one anyway, writing it off as annoyance at Yakov for not letting him do the real deal whenever he wants to. Though he knows his coach is right, and can already hear Yakov’s nagging voice in his head: “ _The last thing I need is you being stupid before a performance, Vitya. I don’t need your mother yelling at me like she did years ago. Irina has a hell of a lot of rage stored away for such a tiny woman._ ”

Victor leaps, the spike coming up and propelling him a good two and a half feet in the air this time, balancing as best he can without any additional spells — and then he feels it again. That goddamn wobble.

One second he’s spinning, and the next he’s suddenly plummeting to the floor, the telltale _crack_ of his skate breaking echoing throughout the rink. 

Victor yelps and flails, all grace flying straight out the window as he falls, and his internal music immediately scratches to a halt. The only thing stopping him from eating ice chunks is his body instinctively creating a block of ice closer to him than the rink floor and putting his arms up in front of his face, slamming his elbow against the cold instead.

He gasps as the pain shoots up his arm, sudden and shocking; a terrible zing that even tingles all the way up to his face — though, he supposes, he was an idiot for thinking he could pull off spinning on spikes with broken skates in the first place, so maybe he kind of deserved it. He definitely should’ve stopped after the first warning sign, but whatever — too late now.

He hears the depressing _shhkkk_ of spikes retreating back into the floor as he hides his face in his arms, slowly dying of embarrassment over falling during such a simple move in front of his peers and... Victor doesn’t even want to see Yakov’s face right now. He really doesn’t.

He clenches his fists, steeling himself a bit, and then finally looks up, gingerly lifting his head.

Yakov is glaring back with a look that is absolutely _screaming_ nothing but offensive things — Victor almost wants to run off to his mother and tell her Yakov’s being mean to him even though he hasn’t spoken a single word yet. 

His coach is practically fuming, red in the face with a vein throbbing in his balding head, and the rink board he’s gripping suddenly freezes under a sheet of ice that shoots out from under his hands. Ah… _very_ upset then. 

“ _Vitya_!”

Victor squeezes his eyes shut and sets his head back down, willing the ice block to slowly inch back into the ground without replying, like the dramatic child he is. 

He lies there on the floor for a moment, simultaneously wallowing in his idiocy while trying not to laugh because Yakov looks really funny when he’s actually mad — all while trying to tune out the unavoidable lecture.

“Stupid boy! What made you think you could pull that off on broken skates?! When was the last time you checked them?! You know you’re supposed to check yours more often than most skaters — damn it, Vitya, it’s called a suicide spin for a _reason_!”

Victor groans and pushes himself up, stretching his arms and legs out and hissing at the dull ache still lingering in his left arm. Not good. 

He looks down at his skate with a pout, assessing the damage. The blade on his right skate seemingly cracked, and the pressure from spinning only worsened it, causing a piece of the blade to snap right off in the very middle. He’s lucky he didn’t fall differently and do some serious damage, but he doesn’t give Yakov the satisfaction of saying that out loud.

Victor forces a smile and shrugs, gliding back to the rink side while avoiding putting too much pressure on his right skate. He pointedly ignores Mila hiding a snort behind her hand and Chris looking torn between concerned and very close to laughing in his face.

“Don’t worry, Yakov.” Victor smiles and waves a hand, leaning casually against the boards. “Those were just baby spins! I didn’t even injure myself.”

A sore elbow doesn’t technically count as an injury, right? He’s fine. Yakov’s deadly gaze shifts between Victor’s face and his elbow anyway, scrutinizing. 

“You’re an idiot,” he grumbles, arms crossed. “You’re off the ice for the rest of the day, and don’t come back until your skates are fixed. I’m not buying you new ones either.”

Victor throws his head back childishly and whines. “Yakov! So mean! I could just rent some skates and keep going.”

“ _You_? Practicing a performance like this in _rented_ skates? _Bah_!” Yakov turns his attention back to the other skaters, eyes narrowing as Georgi looks suspiciously close to sobbing on the ice over his ex-girlfriend again, frozen drops leaking from his eyes. 

Georgi may be even more dramatic than Victor, honestly, and that’s saying something. 

Victor huffs. “But—”

“Vitya,” he cuts him off. Victor would normally argue right back, but he can feel the blizzard raging in the man beside him, the way it pushes against Victor’s own magic more than usual, so he shuts up for once.

The Wandermere Summer Festival tends to be a stressful time for all of the skaters performing — those who are from here because they want to make their town proud, and those who’ve traveled because they don’t want to disappoint such a large audience and make their hometowns look bad in the process — but it’s just as intense for the coaches. One screw up from the skaters and it all falls back on them.

People seem to think Victor never gets nervous, especially not for an ice show that was created to honor his mother’s legacy, but if anything, these performances just just make his nerves flare up even more. He _has_ to do well in these — _has_ to be perfect and enchant the audience completely. It’s one thing to do poorly in a competition far away and let his coach and Wandermere down (not that he’s ever done that anyway), but it’s another to let _the_ Irina Nikiforova down. He knows she wouldn’t see it that way at all, neither would his father, but he can’t help the way he feels about it.

“You know you’re supposed to actually listen to your coach, right?” Mila asks as she relaxes against the boards beside him.

Victor frowns and flips his hair over his shoulder, effectively whipping Chris in the face. “I do most of the time!” 

Victor may have a reputation as being a victim to his whims — doing as he pleases — but he wouldn’t have gotten this far without listening to his coach at _all_. He just… doesn’t listen as often as he should, maybe. 

“Uhuh…” Mila nods slowly with a doubtful look in her eye and puts her skate guards on, taking her break off the ice. Yakov _humphs_ and walks away.

“Everyone here is so mean to me,” Victor sighs dramatically and leans his head back, gazing up at the looming evergreens surrounding the rink. “Even dear, little Mila. So cruel.”

Mila may only be eighteen, but she teases Victor as if they’re the same age, and her blows land all the same. He remembers when Mila first became old enough to perform solo in the Wandermere Summer Festival and really show off her skills; she harbored more poise and elegance than Victor had ever seen in a fifteen-year-old at the time. 

He remembers how impressed he’d been back then, watching her during practice — Victor was stunned at how well she was able to contain her powers. She may be a figure skater, but she’s also a fire conjurer with flaming red hair to match, and insists on pursuing skating even when her parents constantly advise against it.

That impressiveness sort of gave way after their first run through of the dress rehearsal though — Mila had been so excited about nailing her routine that the ice melted under her skates and the flames bursting from her head spread to some of the trees around the outdoor rink. Victor, in his tight, glittery costume, had to spray water from his hands to put them out, like some sort of bedazzled fire hose. 

She seems to have an affinity for causing Victor an abundance of unnecessary stress — that’s probably why her and Yuri get along so well (sort of). 

A soft chuckle from behind him pulls Victor out of his thoughts, turning to face the sound with an eyebrow raised.

Chris is resting his chin in his palm on the outside of the rink, grin teasing. “That was quite the tumble, _mon cher_.”

Victor pouts. “Don’t you have a town to protect?” he asks and turns to face him completely, bunching his hair high up on his head and tying it in place.

“I left a spell up! Do you think I’d just abandon my post completely to be your little cheerleader? You wound me, darling,” he replies and swats Victor’s arm. “Plus, this is your first practice back home in _months_. Maybe I missed you and your…” He plucks a silver strand floating by his face with a grimace. “Obnoxiously long hair — you shed like a dog.”

“My hair’s pretty, not obnoxious.”

Chris rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re very beautiful. We know.”

Victor laughs but doesn’t bother with a reply, too busy trying not to fall on his face as he shuffles off the ice and onto one of the benches instead. He unties his broken skate and inspects it closely, wincing at the damage.

The magic world may know him as some sophisticated, charming celebrity, but he really feels quite the opposite at times. Hours of practice, competitions, and traveling inevitably turns his brain to mush after awhile, and the last thing he ever remembers to do is keep up maintenance on his skates, even when it’s so important — _“that alone is a testament to how much of an airhead you really are_ ,” Yakov drones in his head.

Chris sits next to him as Victor continues turning the skate over in his hands, like maybe if he stares hard enough it’ll fix itself even though he doesn’t possess that sort of magic at all. 

“I know a place you could get these fixed,” Chris says and tugs the skate out of Victor’s hands to look at it himself. “I’ve been meaning to tell you about it. There’s something there I think you’d very much appreciate.”

Victor frowns and turns to look at him, noting the mischievous glint in Chris's eyes. That can’t be good. “And what’s that?” he asks slowly. 

“A cute little fairy or two.”

Victor wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. Chris of all people should know Victor is far too busy for a relationship; he tries to set Victor up with at _least_ one person every time he comes back to Wandermere during breaks, and that always ends with Victor feeling like a terrible person for having to turn so many people down, or leaving restaurants, flustered, because, “ _oh my god, this is a_ date? _I have to go_ ,” when Chris walks him there and then suddenly vanishes. 

Chris seems to think that Victor taking part of the summer off is the perfect opportunity to bombard him with potential boyfriends, when all Victor really wants to do is see his parents and focus on one performance in particular. 

Victor isn’t too keen on handing his skates over to just anyone either, not on looks alone at least, especially since Chris has a habit of sleeping with anyone that breathes in his direction and shows the slightest bit of interest, then later insists: “ _I don’t sleep with just_ anyone _!_ _They’ve all got their own special thing—what? Don’t look at me like that._ ”

“... I don’t know if I believe you. Your taste in men is kinda lacking,” Victor replies absently as he takes the skate back. Yakov really should just let him rent another pair and keep going.

“What do you _mean_?” Chris asks, bemused. “I set you up with Bakery Boy that one time, and I _know_ you had fun that night. What happened? He do a poor job of buttering your muffin, or what?”

“That’s disgusting.”

Victor cringes at the memory. Yeah, what happened _after_ the date had been fun, but the guy was as dumb as a box of rocks — arrogant as hell too, making up stories to impress Victor that tended to fall flat when Victor realized they made close to no sense and were all just made up for show; he was the kind of guy who couldn’t keep track of his own lies.

When he realized who Victor was was a disaster in and of itself too, an agonizing thirty minutes of Bakery Boy trying to force him to show off his craziest powers in the middle of the damn restaurant. Victor spent the rest of the date trying not to take him up on the offer and shove an icicle through the guy’s hand.

Cute face though.

“He was an idiot,” Victor says.

“Mm, I said he was _hot_ , not a scholar.”

Victor snorts and turns his attention back to undoing his other skate, trying to push away the still-hovering feeling of disappointment over being forced off the ice. It’s only until his skates are fixed, he knows that, but Victor doesn’t really know what to do with himself outside of the rink, and he can already feel the inevitable restlessness coiling in his gut.

Maybe Yakov will let him stick around and watch the rest of today’s practice — maybe he can give Mila some pointers, or gather up the paperwork for Yuri to sign and apply for a performance slot next year. He’ll just have to beg Yakov on his hands and knees.

A beat of silence passes when Chris whips his phone out and turns away so Victor can’t see what he’s typing, and Victor definitely doesn’t want to, so he waits.

“Do you really expect me to entrust these strangers with my precious skates just because they’re hot?” he finally asks.

Chris slips his phone back into his pocket. “Yes.” 

Victor rolls his eyes. 

“But seriously, they’re great. Would I ever lie to you?” Chris closes his eyes for a moment, likely trying to feel if the spell he left hanging up is wearing thin. “Speedy as hell too — probably a fairy thing.” 

He pokes Chris's shoulder to get his attention again. “What’d you bring in to get fixed then? You usually whine to me about everything.” 

Chris smirks. “Oh, just something of mine that got a bit, uh, _torn up_ recently. Red, _lacy_ —”

“Alright.”

Contrary to popular belief, Victor and Chris _haven’t_ slept together, and Victor doesn’t really feel up to hearing all the dirty details of Chris’s bedroom rendezvous; silk, lace, or otherwise.

Chris keeps talking though, and if Victor didn’t know any better he’d think he was being paid to promote the damn place. Either the fairies there really _are_ extraordinary or Chris is thinking of leaving his job as the town guard to become a handyman. “The owner’s totally your type though, just sayin’. He’s like a real life Tinkerbell, and his _ass_ is—”

“Chris.”

“Hm?”

“I’ll go.”

Chris laughs heartily and pats him on the back. “Ah, so all it takes is a little ass talk to get you goin’? Should’ve known.”

Before Victor has a chance to ask if comparing an actual fairy to Tinkerbell is offensive, a voice booms from across the rink, and Victor feels the chill behind it in his bones. 

“Vitya! Go home!”

Victor sags against the bench and groans. Chris pouts and rubs his fists against his cheeks to wipe away fake tears. “Guess that’s enough ass chit-chat for one day,” he sighs and stands up, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt. “Better get a move on, ice daddy. I’ll text you the details about that shop later.”

“Did you just call me—”

“Love you!” Chris calls as he saunters away from the rink, fingers wiggling in a delicate wave.

Victor watches his friend leave until he’s out of sight, lamenting the loss of their so-called “ass chit-chat”. Maybe that’s just what Victor needed to keep his mind off things — how else is he supposed to deal with the crushing boredom of being off the ice for a day?

* * *

Victor could just teleport back to his house. He knows that’s the easiest way to get home, and he has his teleportation license after all; a license given to those over the age of sixteen who’ve gone through the oh-so-exciting process of teleportation classes so they can travel short distances — but maybe a walk will help chip away at the remaining hours in the day, instead of just materializing back in his home so he can stare at his ceiling until it’s time to go to bed. Yeah. The latter sounds rather depressing.

After changing out of his practice clothes and into something more put together, he slings his bag over his shoulder and tightens his ponytail, making his way out of the small changing rooms off to the side of the rink. He waves goodbye to Mila and the others as he heads out. Mila just sticks her tongue out and laughs at him for having to leave early. 

Like he said — _so cruel_.

He walks down the gravel path etched into the once overgrown forest floor and breathes deeply, trying to ground himself in the feeling of being _home_. 

Victor hasn’t been back to Wandermere since he dropped by on his birthday last year, just so he could have some sort of celebration with friends and family instead of spending it in another random, lonely hotel. He’d been cutting it close though, since he had an event just days later in some lovely magic village hidden away in the forests of Sweden — Yakov hadn’t been happy about his sudden need for a birthday party, but at least he made it back in time.

He always has some sort of event to attend; a competition, an ice show, a panel, a meet-up, an interview, so it never made much sense to get cozy back in Wandermere if he had to just up and leave days later, traveling to some other part of the world for another draining ordeal. Now he spends most of his time in hotels or the little apartments he’s managed to snag along the way, so he can at least have some semblance of comfort while he’s gone. But Wandermere, the tiny town nestled snugly in the chilly forests of Russia, is what he’ll always consider home.

He would stay here forever if he could. After all, it’s the _ice_ Victor loves, not the constant publicity. Him winning gold every single competition definitely isn’t helping him there though...

Victor looks up through silver lashes at the trees seemingly touching the clouds, shrouded in a blanket of fog — so much for summertime. The birds around him chirp loudly, bouncing from branch to branch and dancing curiously around the gleaming balls of light dispersed throughout the trees. They grow brighter at night as a way to light the roads, making every tree in town practically sparkle. It may not be a big deal in Russia, but it’s because of those that every night in Wandermere looks like Christmas.

The chirping of birds starts to mingle with the upcoming sounds of the town, and soon he’s right in the middle of it, swept up in a feeling of nostalgia as if he’s been away for years. All the buildings are made of old brick and dark wood, hanging signs above every shop decorated with gold, looped fonts to spell out their names. It’s very much the stereotype depicted in fantasy movies or cartoons in the outside world, but at least it’s not as intense as it used to be when his parents were little — every shop and every house tucked inside the trunks of massive trees or covered in flowers and vines.

At least now they’ve made an attempt to modernize the place a bit. Sort of. Whatever, Victor likes it. It’s _cute_.

The forest is only cleared in spots to make way for buildings and side roads, the tall trees feeling like a protective shield around the area, like they’re all snuggled in and comforted by a blanket of vast greenery. The gravel turns to cobblestone under his feet the farther he gets into town — passing florists, and bookstores, and pharmacies, couples arguing over what produce to buy at nearby stands, and children crying for… some reason or another. His arm’s already getting tired from waving at nearly every person that pokes their head out to say hello. 

This kind of attention, he doesn’t mind. Not that he really minds the attention of fans in other areas — it can just be a bit overwhelming being flanked by armies of screaming teenagers (and the occasional crazy mom) every time he leaves his hotel, no matter how good he’s gotten at flashing a charming smile at every camera that’s shoved in his face. He knows they mean well, but it can be exhausting.

At least here he knows most of the people who greet him, and knows they’re not about to bowl him over to get a lock of his hair or something. Well, he knows _most_ of who he sees. The rest he only recognizes from random photos hung around his parents’ house, or brief flashes of childhood memories that come to mind — old friends of his parents’ who stopped by to see him occasionally when he was younger.

He recognizes the baker with the kind smile, who waves as he passes, from when she helped bake a cake for his fifth birthday party (Victor really hopes she’s not Bakery Boy’s mother because, _ma’am, are you aware that your son is_ actually _the worst? Just checking._ ), as well as the man watering flowers outside of the cafe down the street — apparently he’d been so shocked when Victor, at six months old, had vomited all over his t-shirt, that weeds sprouted from his head and dangled in front of his face to mask his mini freak-out. 

There’s still a photo of the exact moment it happened hanging in his parents’ living room. 

After awhile he pays less mind to those around him and continues down the route back home on autopilot, the initial burst of noise from the busiest parts of town slowly dying out the longer he walks, fading to a muffled chatter from those indoors or the random passerby. 

He sighs to himself as his feet start to ache and stops for a moment to stretch his legs out and roll his ankles — it’s only a two mile walk from the rink to his house, but he did fall on his ass earlier (or, _elbow_ , he corrects) and is still tired from traveling. 

Just as he straightens back up and pushes his hair out of his face, he hears a mumbling sound to his left, hidden away in the gap between the two shops beside him. Victor frowns and turns, gazing up at the shop signs above. 

Plisetsky Pups n’ Treats.

Oh… he hadn’t even realized he made it to this part of town yet. Victor grins, beaming with a renewed vigor. 

He squints and notices the bob of blonde hair he was hoping to see hidden in the shadows, leaning against the pet shop with his back turned to Victor as he quietly murmurs to something in front of him that Victor can’t see. 

Victor readjusts his bag and sticks his hand out, tingles shooting down his inner forearm as a small drop of water freezes over and expands into a large snowball against his palm. He sidles over as quietly as possible until he’s just a few feet away, then launches it directly at Yuri’s head.

The teenager squawks and puffs up like an angry kitten, the snow smacking into his hair and falling down the back of his shirt. “Oi, asshole! What the fuck is your—” He spins around on his heel, fuming. “Oh god, it’s _you_.” He scowls.

Victor bounces up to him with all the cheerfulness he can muster, partly because he really _did_ miss the brat he loves so dearly, but also because he knows it pisses him off.

“I missed you too, Yura!” Victor smiles, wiping the leftover snow off of Yuri’s head. “Have you gotten taller since I was away?”

“No, you’re old and shrinking,” Yuri hisses, shielding whatever’s cradled against his chest away from Victor. “Go away, I’m busy.”

Victor heaves a long-suffering sigh and reaches out to tug on a piece of Yuri’s grown-out hair. “There’s no one else around, y’know… You can admit that you love me. Also—” Yuri lifts his arm up and smacks Victor’s hand away, finally giving him a view of the fluffy creature in the crook of his arm. “Oh my god, is that a _puppy_?!” Victor shrieks excitedly.

Screw “ass chit-chat”, Victor will take puppies as a distraction _any_ day. The glimpse he catches of it before Yuri puts his arm back is enough to make Victor’s heart melt — soft, brown curls paired with floppy ears and the sweetest eyes Victor’s ever seen, making him instinctively reach out to pet it, cooing loudly even as Yuri splutters and shoves him away, looking very close to just spitting in Victor’s face to get him to stop.

But how is he supposed to _stop_ when the cutest thing _ever_ is sitting right in front of him? He can’t! 

“Agh, shut up! She’s already freaking the hell out!” Yuri growls. “I don’t need you making it _worse_.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Victor pouts, sporting puppy dog eyes of his own as he strokes the fluffy ear hanging over Yuri’s hand. 

Yuri clicks his tongue in disapproval at Victor’s petting but doesn’t say anything. “She got dropped off last night by some dick who didn’t want her anymore. The other dogs stress her out too, so she told me to take her somewhere quiet,” he grumbles.

“I didn’t realize your parents forcing you to work here would end up turning you into a dog person,” Victor replies, the dog shifting restlessly in Yuri’s arms. Victor shushes her as best he can — though he’s not sure how helpful it is, since _he’s_ not the animal whisperer here.

Yuri’s been working at his grandfather’s pet shop for a little over a year now, and even though it’d take a gun to his head to admit it, Victor knows he’s grown quite fond of the dogs he works with. Being around animals constantly has likely strengthened his powers a bit too.

Victor swears up-and-down that the reason Yuri is so hot headed in the first place is because both of his parents are fire conjurers, and yet Yuri was somehow born with the ability to speak to animals instead. All of that firepower is probably just coursing, useless, through his veins, only released through the colorful vocabulary of an angsty teen. 

Or maybe Yuri’s just an asshole. It’s _very_ clear he prefers animals to people.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m not!” Yuri bristles. “Cats are so much cooler — claws n’ shit, are you kidding? — but… I dunno. She was scared or whatever.”

“Aw, I always knew you were a softy at heart.”

“I wish we were allowed to have cars here,” Yuri replies with a flat stare. “So I could run you the fuck over.”

“No, you don’t.” Victor smiles. “They disturb the animals, and like I said…” He pokes Yuri’s chest. “Softy!” 

Yuri just grumbles and goes back to muttering soothing words in the dog’s ear, gently pressing a kiss to her head when she snuggles closer to him. This is probably the sweetest Victor’s ever seen Yuri act, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it.

He sticks his hand out instead, letting the dog give him a curious sniff before licking his fingers — thankfully, Yuri lets him. With their combined efforts, the puppy seems to calm down quickly, alternating between huffing at Yuri’s comments about her smelling bad and yipping excitedly when Victor sprinkles snowflakes over her head. 

Something warm twists pleasantly in Victor’s chest and it only intensifies the more he thinks about it. What if he got a dog? What if he finally had a travel buddy by his side, to make the craziness of navigating the magic figure skating world a little less lonely? 

“Has anyone been interested in adopting her yet?” Victor asks, forcing his voice to sound casual.

“No,” Yuri replies mildly, still looking down. 

He seems to need an extra five seconds before the question _really_ clicks, then he whips his head up with a sharp glare. “No,” he repeats. “No, _no_. You’re not allowed to have her. You can’t take care of shit! You killed that plant Mila got you in, like, a _week_ — how do you even kill a magical plant? I didn’t even know those things could _die_.”

Mila made the unwise decision of giving Victor a plant a couple years back when the off season had just started — a plant that needed to be told “good morning” once the day had started in order to stay alive. Victor was never awake before one o’clock in the afternoon. It was a very sad and sudden death. 

“... So, I’m a little forgetful.” Victor shrugs, idly twisting a section of his hair around his finger.

Yuri scoffs and reaches up to flick Victor’s forehead. “Can’t believe your head’s that big and there’s not even a fucking brain in it.”

Victor immediately tugs the loose strands from his ponytail over his face. 

“Y’know, I was hoping my welcome home would be full of a lot more _kindness_ ,” Victor whines. “Maybe a hug.”

“Shove it, old man. Came to the wrong fuckin’ shop for that shit.”

Victor doesn’t say anything. 

A beat passes — then Yuri gives him a quick, awkward side-hug.

Victor hums happily and Yuri kicks him in the shin. “You fucking suck.”

The next twenty minutes pass with them talking in depth about the upcoming festival, Yuri’s first solo performance next year, and the fact that, yes, Victor’s hair really is _silver_ , not _grey_.

* * *

Once Victor finally sobers up from the happy-drunk feeling that accompanies interacting with adorable puppies for any amount of time, he spends the rest of his day and night fretting. Some people spend an exorbitant amount of time, money, and energy on their cars, or their wardrobes, or their vintage collections, but for Victor — it’s his skates… Even if he does forget to check what he’s supposed to to ensure he doesn’t break his face on the ice sometimes, okay, _whatever_. He’ll admit it, he’s very much a natural blonde, but he still cares about them!

He has a major performance coming up — one that probably matters the least to everyone else in the figure skating world but matters the most to him; the one that makes him the most nervous — the most excited. So he’s sure it’s understandable that he’s a little wary about handing his skates over to somebody he’s not familiar with so soon before it.

But if he doesn’t get back on the ice within the next two days, he knows for a fact that he’ll go absolutely stir-crazy and probably freeze the town over, and nobody wants that, so he clearly has to come to a decision fast.

Buying a new pair isn't ideal because he won’t be able to break them in properly before the show. He can’t go to the guy who normally fixes the Russian team’s skates because Victor made fun of the music he was playing in his shop once, and the guy got weirdly defensive about it — Victor’s worried he’d get throat-punched if he went back so soon. And he can’t cast any sort of spell to fix the damaged skate himself.

He briefly considers getting help from his father, but he knows that probably wouldn’t go well either. 

His father teaches at the university nearby, specializing in spell creation and teaching those with no innate magic ability — but the spells he could never quite master were those that helped fix simple, broken items. So he was never able to teach Victor those either.

Knowing him, if Victor tried to force his father to learn a new spell so fast, the house would probably blow up.

A spell to help create crazy hairstyles because he thought Victor was going to be a girl? No problem (though, those came in handy anyway). A spell to put someone in a coma for a hundred years? Piece of cake.

Fixing a broken cup? Impossible. 

Victor snorts at that, then blindly feels around for his phone on the nightstand. Maybe Chris can give him a bit of reassurance — reassurance that doesn’t pertain to asses alone, preferably. 

He looks up at the ceiling with bleary eyes as the phone rings.

“You calling to partake in some good ol’-fashioned phone sex while I’m on duty tonight? Aw Vitya, you shouldn’t have,” Chris purrs down the line.

Victor scoffs and rubs a hand tiredly across his face. “You’re incorrigible,” he groans. “I don’t even know why I bothered calling you, nevermind.”

Chris _tsk_ s and Victor hears him shift around in his seat. At least he’s inside then, and not answering Victor’s calls while standing in the middle of the forest, waiting for an intruder to pounce like that one time. 

That had been an interesting insight into Chris’s job though — even if he did almost get fired for it. Victor thought being the town guard would be a lot more intense, but with Chris’s powers, apparently it’s not. Wandermere prides themselves on being quite peaceful the majority of the time and Chris definitely helps with that.

Instead of some meathead sentinel patrolling the entrance to the town, marching with weapons drawn for anyone who poses a threat, Chris uses the rare power of mind control to seduce intruders with his words alone, making them pliant to any command he gives — which are usually along the lines of: “ _shut up, go home, and don’t show your face around Wandermere again_ ,” with a kiss on the cheek.

“What can I say, I’m a real _charmer_ ,” Chris always says with a wink.

“Feisty. Cute,” Chris replies. “What’s up?”

Victor mulls over what he wants to say for a moment, aiming for something that won’t sound _too_ stupid or paranoid even though he’s probably, definitely, both of those things. “That shop you mentioned earlier — are you sure I can trust them? They’re not just some cheap place that get away with the work they do because they’re as hot as you say?”

“Vitya, it’s a repair shop, not a Hooters,” Chris says. Victor can _hear_ his eyes rolling. “They’re very talented fae who just happen to look good holding a wrench.”

“Mmm,” Victor hums, picking at the balls of lint on his blanket. “Alright, if you say so. I just want to be back on the ice as soon as possible and not have to worry about breaking any bones.”

“I want my skates in good shape for the festival,” he adds. 

Chris coos. “I know you do. You’ve always been such a mama’s boy.”

And… well… yeah — can’t argue with that. 

“Glad you’re thinking about going though,” Chris continues. “You could use a little love in your life, I’m serious. You workaholic, you.”

The length of Victor’s sigh probably breaks some sort of world record. “Love is nice and all, but I’m fine. I’ll settle down when I’m, like… fifty. It’s fine.” It’s kind of not fine, but… it’s fine. 

“ _Fifty_?!” Chris chokes. “As your best friend I am legally obligated to play the ultimate wingman and get you a fine ass husband within the next few years. Vitya, you’re almost _thirty_ , and I can tell you’re lonely and stressed as hell. The ice can only help you so much.”

Victor wails pathetically to shut him up, tugging the blanket over his face. “I didn’t call to ask you to be my therapist!”

Victor knows he’s lonely, but it’s not… the worst. He can deal with it; it really doesn’t bother him that much. He chose an isolating sport, he knows that. He’s constantly surrounded by those who view him as nothing more than a challenge to beat, a star to match up to, but it’s fine, really.

He can handle the empty apartments, the nights spent alone, the banquets full of so many people, yet no one to talk to. At least he always has the ice to look forward to — the reminder of why he does all of this in the first place, and his love for _that_ hasn’t diminished in the slightest over the years. Even if it does feel a bit more routine now than it used to and he doesn’t quite know who he is outside of it anymore. 

“I’m thinking of getting a dog?” he adds lamely. 

Chris snorts. “Victor Nikiforov — the supposed figure skating playboy getting a dog instead of a boyfriend,” he muses. “You’re gonna be like the crazy cat lady next door, aren’t you?”  
  
“No, that’ll be Yuri in ten years.” Maybe five. 

“Just be careful when you show up to that place.” Chris chuckles. “Their owner’s a bit, uh… jumpy. I suppose.”

“What do you mean?” He frowns, lips pursed. 

Chris hums in thought. “I don’t know if he’s a _magic_ handyman — his friend is, I know that. But I think this guy has powers more related to his emotions?” he says. “I guess I snuck up on him last time. Poor guy freaked out when I said hello and then all of the lightbulbs in the building shattered.”

Victor flounders. He really hopes his visit to this shop doesn’t end with him picking glass out of his hair. “That’s… very _Carrie_ -esque.”

“Without the pretty little prom dress and tiara, yeah,” Chris sighs. “I’m just warning you now though because you can be a bit much.”

“A bit much?”

“I’m intense in a sexy way. You’re intense in an annoying way.”

“Chris!” Victor can definitely be annoying at times but that doesn’t mean Chris has to say it out _loud_.

Chris laughs and Victor hears him push back in his seat before walking across whatever room he’s in. Right, Chris has a town to protect; he shouldn’t be psychoanalyzing Victor while they talk about cute boys like some sort of weird sleepover. 

“Okay fine, you can be charming when you want to be,” he admits. “But I gotta get going. I’ll text you the address in a bit, yeah? Goodnight, _mon amour_.”

Victor grumbles his goodbye and tosses his phone back onto the nightstand. At least the short call helped lessen most of his worries; Chris is good at doing that — in his own unique way. 

He sighs and rolls over, the braid he put his hair in already falling apart from his tossing and turning. He spends the rest of the night sprouting snowflakes from his fingertips until he finally falls asleep.   
  


**one.**

* * *

  
It takes about thirty seconds for Victor to realize why he’s never been to this shop, and why he’s never heard of it before. After one standard teleportation excursion, about fifteen minutes, he’s _still_ not there, and also realizes he’s heading in the direction of Wandermere that’s still more forest than town — one of the few places that wasn’t really touched during the previous renovations.

Victor usually avoids going to these sort of places alone. He always has too much on his mind as is, leaving him completely focused on his own thoughts and nearly oblivious to everything else around him — one wrong turn and he will inevitably find himself lost for two hours, somehow, in his own hometown. 

And as much as he loves the wilderness he lives within, he really doesn’t want to be mauled by bears anytime soon, so after the fifteen minute trip and some walking, that initial wariness and doubt starts to creep back in again.

After this is over he could possibly leave with a botched pair of skates _and_ have his arm torn off by rabid animals on his way home… _Amazing! Thanks for the suggestion, Chris!_

The gravel path he’s trudging along is environed by more thick evergreens than usual, making it feel more like a dirt trail than an actual road. The trees block out the bright white of the fogged-over sunshine and the twinkling balls of light hovering above the branches beam brighter to light the path — bathing the area in a gentle, warm light like it’s permanently sundown.

He huffs and tugs his bag closer to his body, continuing his journey on foot and pulling up the directions Chris sent him once or twice again — just to ensure that he doesn’t _actually_ get lost (and then fall in a ditch and have to chew his leg off when he gets pinned between two rocks or something; he may have grown up in this town, and loves it with all his heart, but all of the traveling throughout his life has inevitably turned him into at least ten percent city slicker, if he’s being completely honest).

(He breathes a sigh of relief when he eventually stumbles upon a few shops tucked between the trees along the way. At least if he dies here, there will be witnesses!) 

It takes about another five minutes for him to finally find the path that leads to the shop he’s actually looking for though, and once he does, the building is impossible to miss. Well — if you can even call it a building.

Victor is once again hit with a pang of nostalgia at the sight of it. He wasn’t even born when places around Wandermere still looked like this, but the style takes him back anyway — to sitting in his mother’s lap with his father to his left and his grandmother to his right, flipping through photo albums of what the town used to look like, of what _they_ grew up in, and he can’t help but feel a little warm and fuzzy over it.

The building is a massive tree stump, clearly enlarged by some sort of magic, standing tall and wide with vibrant flowers and thick vines planted in the ground around it and partly wrapped around its sides. The door is painted a dark burgundy and chipped around the middle, and the perimeter of the stump is surrounded by stones varying in size as well as shades of grey.

Victor also notices the many small dog statues scattered around the crooked sign stuck in the ground beside him that reads, “Patched Up”, and feels impossibly charmed. 

He walks up to the door and gently tugs it open, startling slightly at the little _ding_ from the golden bell above his head once he’s inside, suddenly breaking the previous silence that filled his entire journey there — but with a quick once over of the place, Victor is… immediately put at ease, somehow.

Not in the sense that he just feels _okay_ or a _little less stressed_ , but like a physical bucket of warm light and sweet honey was just poured lovingly over his head — he feels like he’s being… hugged? Whatever’s happening here, Victor is very much a fan of it. 

He vaguely registers a counter to his left at the far end of the room, but the shop is just so _big_ and full of so many _things_ that Victor’s attention is being pulled in a million directions at once.

He’s never seen so much _stuff_ in one room before and can’t help but feel a little awed and mystified about it — and also like a tiny, dumb bird being distracted by so _many shiny things, wow_!

The lights are soft and low and the place is cluttered to all hell, yet somehow doesn’t feel overwhelming in the slightest. It feels lived in and sweet, like one look over the place lets you know immediately that this shop is _loved_ ; it’s like stepping into someone else’s house for the first time and seeing all of their knick-knacks, photographs, and clutter upon every surface — the things that make them, _them_.

There’s lines of pots and pans hanging from the hooks along the walls, glinting under the light of the dim lamps, stacks upon stacks of reconstructed books that are older than Victor’s parents sitting on shelves, and mannequins standing side by side, donned in corsets and dresses with pins still sticking out of their fabrics and tape measures dangling from their shoulders.

There’s also a statue standing delicately on a wooden stump next to a rusty, winding staircase that leads to a mysterious second floor that catches Victor’s attention last — a copper wire statue, about a foot tall, of a ballerina with her arms outstretched and her leg pulled back far behind her, lithe and poised. It kind of reminds him of Yura.

A sniff sounds from behind the counter Victor bypassed completely when he first walked in and pulls him from his trance, and when he looks up, he’s met with the sight of messy black hair and translucent, powder blue wings.

The man has his head down as he aimlessly scrolls through his phone against the counter, so all Victor can really make out are the large glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, distorting the rest of his face from view — and with every light flutter of his wings, a light burst of silver glitter follows, disappearing before it hits the ground. 

Victor’s not sure _how_ he knows it, since this sort of magic couldn’t be farther from Victor’s own, but he _knows_ that the man behind the counter is responsible for the comforting feeling he couldn’t figure out before; like maybe he’s emitting it himself as a way to calm any customer that walks in, or he just loves his job so much that the feeling never leaves — an automatic response to just being here.

Either way, Victor’s pulse quickens and he falters for a moment. That hugging feeling suddenly feels a _lot_ more intimate and jarring than it did before now that he knows it’s coming from this stranger — this _soft_ looking stranger with _sparkly wings_ — and he just _barely_ stops himself from blushing over it. 

This isn’t _high school_ , he grumbles inwardly. He shouldn’t be blushing at the sight of someone who hasn’t even _done anything_ to him; but before he can freak out too much or embarrass himself completely, he strides over to the counter with the fake confidence he’s become a master at conjuring at this point, and speaks.

“... Excuse me?”

And just like that, the good feeling in his chest is twisted horribly.

It’s like someone sucks the air out of his lungs completely and then kicks him in the stomach for good measure. The fairy at the desk _shrieks_ , his phone goes flying, the lights flicker, and the potted flowers on the counter shrivel up and _die_.

Victor jumps out of his skin and instinctively wraps his arms around his head because, _oh_ fuck _, right_ , and braces himself for a shower of glass to come crashing down on his head like some sort of hellish rainfall. 

It never comes.

Victor slowly loosens his grip after a moment and peeks through the gap between his arms. The fairy is breathing harshly and clutching at his chest, eyes closed and wings trembling — but after another minute of terrible silence, he finally looks up and makes eye contact.

The fairy shrieks _again_ , only this one is accompanied by a burst of _red_ glitter that nearly touches the ceiling; a bright shade that matches the poor man’s face perfectly.

That’s finally what snaps Victor out of it, all fake confidence evaporating into thin air instantaneously. He starts stuttering, babbling comforting words he _knows_ aren’t helping and waves his arms around like a maniac — like that’ll calm _anybody_ down, but what else is he supposed to do?

Chris was probably a lot better at this even if he did get glass-blasted in the face. Victor’s never been good at making people feel better; he can’t even make _himself_ feel better, and— 

“I didn’t mean to scare you!” Victor shouts.

The fairy _wheezes_ and does his own arm flailing as well; it makes Victor feel a little less ridiculous at least. “Y-you didn’t scare me!” he stutters, nervously pushing his glasses back into place and still catching his breath. “You just… caught me off guard.”

Victor blinks. “I think that means the same thing.”

“Right,” the fairy — _Yuuri_ , according to his name tag — breathes, eyes flitting over everything in the room _except_ Victor’s face. “... Sorry.” 

Meanwhile (now that the man is completely avoiding eye contact and Victor can stare, unashamed, even if just for a few seconds), Victor’s come to the conclusion that Chris is a complete and utter dumbass if the only word that came to mind while being graced with this man’s presence was “cute”. Next time he sees Chis, he’s going to smack him across the face with a dictionary and tell him to expand his vocabulary a little.

This man is _gorgeous._ Not in the way fairies tend to be — all sharp eyes and mischievous smiles — and he’s not movie star handsome either. He’s like his own brand of beautiful; sweet and awkward with dark, rich eyes that Victor could drown in, sparkling even more than the glitter falling from his wings. 

Victor’s mind _reels_. His hands feel clammy, and all of the responses he’s practically programmed into his brain to charm his way through interviews and meet and greets are suddenly useless, the English language flying straight out of his head to a destination far, _far_ away from here.

“Are you… apologizing because I snuck up on you?” he asks dumbly, gaze sliding to the depressing, wilted tulips beside him. “And I made you kill your _flowers_!” he cries. “Oh god, I can buy you new ones!” 

“No! No, no, no, it’s fine!” Yuuri’s arms are _still_ flailing. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I do this sorta thing all the time… unfortunately,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck and biting his lip — like he’s actually a million nervous habits stacked on top of each other in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a person. “Sorry.”

The man cringes, his face scrunching up as the apology falls from his lips before he can stop it, then closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to steady himself again.

Victor waits. He’d probably stand here and wait ten years if it meant getting to hear that soft, saccharine voice again.

Is that too much? That’s definitely too much.

See, this is why Victor doesn’t _date_ — because even on the rare occasion things _do_ work out, he turns into a total, smitten freak about it.

When Yuuri speaks again though, his voice takes on that customer service tone Victor initially expected when he received _screaming_ instead. “How can I help you?” he asks with a small smile, then his brows furrow slightly and he casts Victor a concerned look. “Are you lost?”

Victor frowns and takes a quick look around the room.

“Lost?” he asks, still confused. “Why would I be lost?”

“Oh, well, uh…” Yuuri blushes and taps his fingers against the counter. “This is a little far from your rink, yeah? I just never expected to see you all the way out here.”

“Oh, you know who I am?” Victor beams at the man across from him.

He mentally runs through every competition and show he’s ever skated in immediately, torn between proud and sheepish as he recalls mistakes he’s made, jumps he’s missed, embarrassing costumes his mother forced him to wear during his junior years. If Yuuri’s a fan, he really hopes he hasn’t been since the very _beginning_ … Or, no, maybe he does, that’d be sweet, but— 

The thought of this beautiful man knowing Victor’s worn rainbow tutus on the ice is enough to make him want to melt into a puddle on the floor and _die_ — Yuri already makes fun of him enough for that.

Yuuri tilts his head, glasses sliding down his nose an inch. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Victor deflates a bit.

Right. 

So maybe he’s not a _fan_ — somebody who actually cares about Victor’s programs and _skating_ , like he’d hoped. He’s probably just heard of Victor through all of the rumors and posters that incessantly scatter around town, or from the random sports channels that constantly hound Victor for interviews and never let him catch a break.

As much as Victor appreciates being recognized for finding a career in something he loves, it often feels like that’s all anybody cares about when it comes to him — being “famous” — and it stings a little… Just a little; and there are times when it really _does_ feel like everybody in the world knows who he is and what he does — and Victor loves it just as much as he hates it. 

His stomach twists at that, and the smile on his face suddenly feels a bit too tight. “Ah, yes,” he replies. “I suppose.”

Yuuri’s expression shifts suddenly, a few times — from blank-faced to a little sad, and then… focused? On what, Victor has no clue, but he squirms under Yuuri’s gaze and mindlessly twirls his hair around his finger to keep busy. 

Well, this is new; usually attention like this doesn’t leave him so _flustered_.

Then, like the mood physically shifts in the air, Victor feels content — less frazzled, less tense, and his eyes widen somewhat at the sudden change. It’s as if a phantom hand reaches directly into the deep recesses of his mind and blurs the sharp and jagged edges of his thoughts to something a bit softer, blanketing them in a cloud of _it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay_. 

He looks up at Yuuri in shock, and the smile and blush he receives makes the warmth in Victor’s chest bloom even brighter.

Yuuri clears his throat. “Anyway,” he starts and waves a hand, “did you need help with something?”

Victor shakes his head to clear his thoughts and clumsily brushes his hair out of his face. “Right!” 

He awkwardly shoulders his bag off and pulls it up onto the counter, unzips it, and yanks out the damaged pair of skates. He can’t help but blanch at the sight of them still; he’s never managed to mess them up _this_ badly before, but there’s a first for everything even as a figure skating champion, apparently.

“Anyway you could get these fixed in time for the festival?” Victor asks, pouting as he nudges them forward. “I don’t even think it’s been twenty-four hours since I’ve been off the ice, and I’m already starting to go a little crazy.”

Just the thought of being off the ice any longer has Victor’s magic tingling in his fingertips, chilly and maddening, begging to be used for something _massive_ instead of touching window panes to watch frost them over, or shooting snowflakes into the air and catching them on his tongue to pass the time.

Yuuri seems to sense his eagerness and chuckles lightly. Victor’s heart soars.

“Let me take a look,” he sighs, then picks up the most ruined skate to inspect it closely. 

Victor watches as Yuuri pushes his glasses farther up his nose and holds the skate closer to his face, turning it in his hands and brushing a finger along the cold metal of the blade. It almost seems to glow under his touch, and as his brows furrow, Victor can _feel_ the concentration rolling off the fairy in waves.

Every movement and shift of feeling in the air serves to further solidify Victor’s assumptions; Yuuri definitely has powers related to his emotions — a strange empath of sorts with a side of handyman magic too, apparently. 

This man just keeps getting more and more interesting. 

Looking over the skates probably takes no less than a minute and a half, but time seems to slow to a snail’s pace while Victor watches him — the way he bites the inside of his lip, scrunches his nose up, brushes a hand through his hair while he focuses, all while steady puffs of glitter continue to fall behind him. 

“What do you think?” Victor asks, cutting through the comfortable silence. “Can you save ‘em? Or am I gonna have to risk death by doing a suicide spin on chipped blades?”

Yuuri huffs a laugh and sets down one skate to pick up the other, this time just giving it a quick once-over. “Well, with your talent I’m sure you could pull it off anyway.”

Victor’s grins at that, and bells sound off in his head — alarm bells? _Wedding_ bells? He’s not sure, but either way they’re screaming: _!!! Cute, little fairy handyman thinks I’m talented !!! Cute, little fairy handyman thinks I’m talented !!!_

“But, I can fix these easily,” Yuuri continues with a shrug, finally holding eye contact for more than two seconds. “Give me… today and tomorrow? Usually I could have them done before then, but I have a few other projects to finish up first.”

Victor’s emotions twist confusingly and at high-speed — from disappointment, to acceptance, to excitement. 

He desperately wants his skates back sooner than that — time off the ice makes minutes stretch to eons — but at least he has zero doubt this hardworking fairy knows exactly what he’s doing now… and just the thought of getting to see Yuuri again in the near future has butterflies swarming aggressively in his stomach too.

Yuuri takes notice of the whirlwind of conflicting emotions immediately and raises an eyebrow in amusement. Victor just smiles and leans in a little closer.

“As insane as I’m feeling right now, you can take all the time you need to work your magic. I trust you,” he says with a wink.

Yuuri splutters and takes a step back from the counter, moving his hand around like Victor’s a fly he’s trying to shoo away. Victor doesn’t know whether to laugh or take offense, so he backs up to give the fairy some space instead. 

Yuuri quickly busies himself then, taking the skates and turning around to place them on a dark, wooden shelf full of endless trinkets and devices Victor can’t even make sense of at first — and when he turns around once more, he reverts back to the timid fairy Victor met just minutes ago, speaking softly with a blush that seems nearly permanent. “H-how did you break them anyway?” 

Ah, so now it’s Victor’s turn to blush; there goes his cool-guy, figure skater persona right out the window… He’s not sure how well he was actually upholding that act though.

Victor shrugs and scratches the back of his neck. “Er, I… may have forgotten to check them over recently like I was supposed to. I’ve had a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“The most famous figure skater in the magic world forgets to look after his skates?” Yuuri smirks.

“ _Stop_ , you sound like Yakov now!”

Yuuri just laughs. “Ah, do I? My bad,” he says through a fit of giggles. “He seems pretty terrifying.” 

As soon as the harmless words leave his lips, Yuuri’s eyes widen and he sucks in a sharp breath… then the panicked flailing starts up again before Victor can even get a word out. “Oh god, that was rude wasn’t it? Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sure he’s a great guy. I just—”  
  
Victor feels his stomach sink and opens his mouth to stop the man from working himself up again, but flinches when the lights flicker a second time, a dreadful buzzing sounding from the lightbulbs around the shop. This time Victor fully expects all hell to break loose, so he reaches out to grasp Yuuri’s hands between his own as fast as he can and sets them back down on the counter with a comforting squeeze. 

Yuuri stops abruptly, freezing up as he stares down at their hands in surprise, and Victor can’t tell if the craziness he’s feeling is Yuuri’s or his own now — or maybe they’re just feeding off each other’s panicked states like some sort of vicious cycle of anxiety.

He tries to ignore the way his heart races at the contact and silently prays Yuuri can’t feel the hurricane of disgustingly romantic and mushy feelings rushing through his veins right now. Hopefully he just feels it as _comforting, happiness, nervousness_ , and not specifically, _screw everything I said the other day. I will settle down and marry you right now, no, like, seriously,_ right now— 

“You’re fine,” Victor assures him sternly, partly to calm the other down but also to ebb his own embarrassing thoughts. “You don’t need to apologize. Between me and Yura, trust me when I say Yakov’s heard a lot worse than that.”

He rubs his thumb along the back of Yuuri’s hand until the buzzing subsides and the flowers even perk up the tiniest bit, all while Yuuri stares down at their hands in a daze — and when Victor finally lets go — the fairy almost seems to pout. Victor doesn’t mention it; at least the air feels a little lighter.

“You’re right though,” Victor continues, laughing to ease the tension. Yuuri looks up at him curiously. “He’s like a grandfather to me, but he’s a total hardass too.” 

Yakov may seem scary at first glance, but beneath that scowl and hideous fedora is nothing but a grumpy teddy bear; a grumpy teddy bear that’s even admitted he views Victor as the son he’s never had during late nights at the rink together (only after too many swigs of vodka in his office, of course).

Yuuri huffs and ducks his head, but Victor can see the corners of his lips tugging up into a smile. “... Well, I guess he’s good at his job if you’ve gotten this far, right?”

Victor returns the smile and chuckles. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, but don't tell him I said that. He’ll use that against me forever, and get all…” Victor straightens up and frowns, putting on his best Yakov voice. “Vitya, you idiot! You admit I’m amazing at my job, yet you _still_ don’t listen to me?”

Yuuri’s laughter hits his ear like a tinkling bell — high, vibrant, and beautiful — and all at once, Victor knows exactly what it feels like to fall for a fairy’s vivacious charm.

Yuuri clears his throat after a beat of silence, his smile never budging as he points back to the shelf behind him. “I should get started on these.”

“Oh right, of course! Sorry for distracting you.” Victor blinks and shakes his head, stepping back again to give the fairy room to breathe. 

Talking to Yuuri almost made him forget why he was even there to begin with — broken skates, upcoming festival… awful best friend who recommended this amazing shop to him in the first place. Right.

Yuuri makes his way to the cash register at the end of the counter — a machine that looks strikingly modern and out of place in a building like this — and Victor follows, pulling out his wallet to pay.

“It’s fine,” Yuuri speaks softly, almost like he doesn’t want Victor to hear him at all. “You’re a welcome distraction.”

For once, Victor’s at a loss for words.

They swiftly finish up the payment process, exchanging change and notes of pick-up reminders with nervous hands. The emotion floating in the air feels wound tight and excited, and once again, Victor’s not quite sure who it’s coming from. It’s probably just him. It’s definitely just him.

On his way out, Victor stops once he’s halfway out the door, poking his head back in with a heart-shaped grin. “I trust my babies are in good hands!”

Yuuri's answering smile is shy but bright, and he bows in a polite manner. “I’ll do my best.”

Victor smiles back and nods with a wave, finally heading out the door and letting it close softly behind him. He doesn’t even make it ten steps down the trail before he’s whipping his phone out.

“How dare you interrupt my beauty rest, _mon cher_ ,” a voice grumbles down the line.

“It’s noon,” Victor replies. “And also, I hate you. I just wanted to call and see if you were aware of how absolutely terrible you are.”

“I work night shifts, you monster.” Chris sighs dramatically and Victor hears the silk of his sheets rustling as he sits up. “What’d I do this time? Did I accidentally drunk-dial your mother again? Because Vitya, I don’t know what to tell you. She’s a beautiful woman, and I—”

“Chris!”

“Mm?”

Victor huffs as he squints at the sunlight bleeding through the treetops and kicks at the rocks under his feet, finally allowing his face to burn up with the giddiness and embarrassment he could barely contain earlier. This is one of the first times he’s felt that false “flirty playboy” mask and reputation of his begin to slip around someone he’s interested in, and it’s… a lot to handle. 

“I went to that shop you recommended.”

“Oh!” Chris replies. Victor can hear the smirk in his voice. “And how did that go? Did the building burn to the ground this time? Isn’t he cute—”

“I have never been so completely enthralled by another person _ever_ ,” Victor cuts him off. “I thought I was going to vomit _multiple_ times, Chris— _Chris_! My life is over. You’re a life ruiner… Oh my god.”

The line is silent for a moment and Victor picks up the pace, shuffling along the gravel so he can make his way back home and scream into his pillow like an annoying teenager. 

Chris laughs suddenly. “Oh god, what have I done?” 

Victor just throws his head back and yells at the trees.  
  


**two.**

* * *

  
Their next interaction only lasts a few minutes, if that, due to there being more than just himself in the shop _and_ a second fairy bustling around this time; this one's bubbly with pale green wings and red glitter moving wildly behind him, and Victor just _barely_ stops himself from making a joke about Christmas elves. 

His skates are handed over to him in a navy blue sack with a blush, a smile, and a soft, “Come back soon.”

It isn’t until he takes them out at the rink that he notices the blades have been switched from their usual color to a striking gold that gleams under the new sun of the Russian summer. 

There’s a folded note sitting at the bottom too, and when Victor opens it, it reads, “ _Gold skates to go with your gold medals (because it’s what a champion such as yourself deserves, right?). Hope you like them. — Katsuki Yuuri_ ”

And it isn’t until his rink-mates point it out that Victor realizes a trail of silver glitter follows closely behind him with every push off the ice too.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Victor is a man like any other. 

He has his own quirks, his own tastes, his own strengths, and his own weaknesses too. And what does that mean? It means he also shares a common weakness among those walking this very earth — that weakness being:… _puppies_.

Perhaps you could add a certain Yuuri Katsuki to that list too because Victor’s confident that being around that fairy for any amount of time is bound to make you a little weak in the _knees_ , at least — which is inevitably what set this plan in motion. 

Victor’s weak for puppies just like anybody else, but he’s also weak for Yuuri. Yuuri, being a living, breathing human, is also weak for puppies (obviously). So, say Victor waltzed into that shop once more with a charming smile and a ball of wriggly fur under his arm — Yuuri’s bound to be weak for _Victor_ and immediately fall in love with him, right? Right… that’s how that works. 

Simple math, really.

Except everybody else he’s mentioned this plan to seems to think he’s a total moron and should just ask for Yuuri’s number instead. Which Victor _would_ do… if he weren’t feeling so uncharacteristically nervous this time around. 

Victor’s been on many a date in the past, and all of them have either ended disastrously or were so mind-numbingly boring Victor’s not even sure how he expected them to go well in the first place — either way, Victor’s good at pretending he knows _exactly_ what he’s doing and knowing _exactly_ how he affects people. 

But not now. 

_Now_ Victor feels like an anxious schoolboy who’s absolutely positive he’s found the high school sweetheart he wants to marry and spend the rest of his life with… when in reality he’s almost thirty and is experiencing intense emotions for another person for the first time, and feels like the world is ending because of it.

So yes, he could just ask for Yuuri’s number, but he’s Victor — and he feels like he’s losing his mind. So, the only logical solution is to do something dumb and dramatic to be absolutely sure that Yuuri even likes him at all.

Which is why he’s now walking into Plisetsky Pups n’ Treats just three days after his skates were fixed, fully intent on getting his hands on the _other_ adorable thing that’s so graciously stolen his heart.

“Why are you smiling like that? I know that smile; it means _bad things_ ,” is the first thing out of Yuri’s mouth the second Victor walks in.

Was he smiling?… He didn’t even realize.

Victor may be feeling like a self-proclaimed happy-camper and an absolute man-with-a-plan, but Yuri is the spitting image of a bratty teen: hair in his face, phone in his hand, and his legs propped up on the front desk while he scowls at anything that breathes… Oh, to be a teenager again, hating the world.

Victor tries not to trip over the miscellaneous dog toys as he makes his way over. He has a feeling Yuri set them up that way on purpose, but once he evades the booby traps, he rests his elbows on the counter and heaves a longing sigh. “Am I not allowed to be happy, Yura?”

Yuri blows his bangs out of his face and frowns, not even bothering to look up from his phone this time. “Uh, not that kind of happy,” he says. “You’re _scheming_. Do I have to get grandpa to kick your ass out?” He finally looks up at that, and raises an eyebrow in challenge. “Because I will.”

“Well, what do people usually come in here for? Think about it.”

He doesn’t care what Yuri says — no amount of tantrums or screaming fits (which he is way too old to be having, by the way) will deter him from leaving with that precious poodle in his arms. Victor has a plan and he intends to follow through with it. And aside from the “Make Yuuri Love Me” plan, Victor’s finally come to realize just how lonely he is, and he’s in desperate need of doggy cuddles, alright?

He needs someone to come home to, someone to take care of, someone to have by his side like his furry partner in crime — he’s been riding this depressing rollercoaster alone for too long and he’s sick of it. It’s time for something new in his life, to brighten his spirits. 

Yuri stares forward for a moment, processing the question, then turns to slam his phone down on the counter. He sits up and glares, putting his hands in front of him like they’re in a _very_ important business meeting and he’s trying his hardest to intimidate — he definitely got that from Yakov. 

“No,” he states firmly. 

“ _Yuri!”_

“Victor,” he spits, “as if I would ever let you take care of anything with a _pulse_.”

Victor sags against the counter and whines. He’s seconds away from just hopping over the counter and breaking into the back himself, collecting the puppy in his arms and making a run for it. Maybe while he’s at it he could freeze off _every_ lock instead and release _all_ of them — that’d probably be a headliner in the newspaper... maybe it’d make Yuuri smile.

“What do you mean?!” Victor cries. “You can totally trust me; we’re like brothers!”

Yuri retches and rolls his eyes. “Ugh, thank _fuck_ we’re not related. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to worry about my hairline receding as much as yours.”

Victor pouts and self consciously tugs on his ponytail. Why does Yuri always have to go in for the kill?

“You wound me so…” Victor sniffs. “Why do you insist on being so mean to me, huh? Did Beka forget to text back again?”

If there’s one thing that’ll rile Yuri up more than anything, it’s mentioning Otabek in any way that isn’t praising him like he’s some sort of divine being. He’s a healer and part-time mechanic in one of the rare magic _cities_ in Kazakhstan, and even though Yuri would rather die than admit it, he practically worships the ground the older teen walks on. They met at an ice show there just last year and Yuri hasn’t been able to shut up since.

Yuri _growls_ (okay, maybe he’s getting a little _too_ used to being around dogs all day) and shouts, “I’m not mean, fucker!” Then he jabs a finger against Victor’s chest. “You’re just forty-five and sensitive!”

Victor gasps. “I’m not—!”

Yuri turns in his swivel chair and shoots up from his seat, then aggressively bends down to rip a set of keys out of one of the drawers beside him and quickly turns on his heel, stomping toward the door behind the front desk. “Stop talking, stop talking, stop _talking_ ,” he groans.

Victor vaults over the counter and runs after him.

Once Yuri lets him back into the dog room, Victor dissolves into a puddle of delighted, mushy goo on the floor because not only does the little poodle _remember_ him, but she jumps into his lap and licks his face like she’s been waiting for the day he’d come back for her. Victor nearly cries.

When Yuri confirms that that actually _is_ what she’s thinking, Victor really does cry. Just a little bit (a lot). 

Victor rolls around on the floor with her — not bothering to worry about getting dirt on his clothes because Nikolai Plisetsky always keeps his shop spick and span even _with_ his bad back — and throws toys for her to catch, squealing happily when she skitters and slides across the floor to fetch them. Even Yuri admits she’s pretty cute.

Victor holds her close to his chest and ruffles the curls on top of her head, planting excited kisses along her ears as she pants. He looks down at her and beams. “I’m gonna name you Makkachin! How’s that sound, Makka girl?”

“Makkachin? Are you kidding? That’s—” Yuri stops and looks at the poodle as she stares back at him and tilts her head to the side, whimpering. He rolls his eyes and huffs. “She likes it...”

Victor gapes and looks back and forth between the two of them a few times, then grins so wide it hurts his face. “She does?” Makkachin _woofs_ and nibbles on his hand. “She does! Amazing!”

Victor briskly gets to his feet and cuddles her against his shoulder, looking down at her with a smile he can’t seem to wipe off. “I’m gonna be taking you home, Makka, is that okay? … _Oh_ , and you can call me Victor!” he adds as an afterthought. “… Oh wait, we can’t understand each other.”

Makkachin makes a sighing sound and nuzzles against his armpit. Yuri snorts. “If you could, you’d know she’s saying you smell like ass right now.”

Victor gingerly lifts his arm up and sniffs, just barely containing a grimace. He probably should’ve showered after practice before coming here but he had _very_ important business to attend to, clearly!

“I don’t know what you mean.” Victor shrugs. “This is the smell of pure manliness.”

“Oh my god, _leave_ already.”

Victor sighs and walks over to pinch Yuri’s cheek, just narrowly avoiding the angry kitten’s claws. “And miss out on more lovely bonding time with you?” he asks. “Why would I do such a thing?” 

Yuri crosses his arms and seethes for a moment, glaring daggers directly into Victor’s eyeballs before giving in. “Okay fine, you can stick around,” he grumbles, “but _sweep_ or something. Otherwise I’ll kick your ass to the curb and lock you out.”

To anyone else it might have sounded rude and demanding, but Victor knows that’s just Yuri’s special little way of letting him know he really _does_ want Victor’s company. His chest swells with happiness, then he _tsk_ s and shuffles out of the room, puppy in hand and feisty teen in tow. 

“What would Nikolai say if I told him you’ve developed such a potty mouth?”

Yuri slumps down in his seat and snatches his phone back, and Victor has to hide an amused smile when he immediately opens a text conversation with Otabek, two unread messages clearly on display as the younger man scowls. “He’d say I got it from him,” he replies. “Fuck you.”

Victor shakes his head and hops onto the counter with Makkachin, swinging his legs back and forth while he tries to reel conversation out of Yuri that isn’t just throwing insults. He _kind of_ succeeds.

The next hour passes in a blur of mindless chit-chat, an impromptu toy war that results in Victor getting pelted between the eyes from across the room, and an argument over what they should order as a late lunch. 

Victor sighs and looks down at the sweet poodle nestled against his foot, fast asleep and dreaming as he leans against the desk; the toy war seems to have tired her out too. When he looks up again he grabs a handful of french fries and shovels them into his mouth before speaking (if Yakov knew he was straying so far from his diet, he’d cut Victor’s hair off in his sleep, but he tries to ignore that thought for now).

“Do you think it’s possible to woo a man just by showing him your cute pet?” he asks, voice muffled.

Yuri shoots him a disgusted look and reaches up to smack him for talking with his mouth full, but Victor flails away in time. “What, like desperate, divorced dads who go to the mall with their babies to pick up chicks? You trying that angle now?” Yuri sneers and picks at his food. “Man, you really are getting old.”

Victor groans dramatically and sinks to the floor, picking up the deadweight of his snoring puppy. “One day you’ll be feeling the same as me!” he cries, feeling petulant. “And because I’m a _good person_ , I’ll even help you sort it all out too.”

Yuri perks up suddenly as his phone chimes and even smiles a little — _smiles_! Maybe Victor will be helping out a lot sooner than he thought.

“Whatever,” Yuri replies, lacking his usual bite. “Go kiss your dog.”

Victor mumbles something about wanting to kiss a certain fairy instead, but smooches Makkachin on the nose anyway.  
  


* * *

  
Perhaps commanding a puppy to destroy shoes on purpose is a terrible first trick to teach them, and one that will definitely bite Victor in the ass later, but he’s a little reluctant to tear up anything else in his house in the name of love, so it’ll do for now. 

Victor had intended on waiting a few days before teaching Makkachin any tricks, concerned that she’d be too stressed or nervous over being in a new environment to comprehend much of anything, but to Victor’s surprise, she settled in immediately. 

After spending a somewhat pleasant afternoon with Yuri, he brought Makka home with a giant bag of toys, treats, and doggy clothes slung over his shoulder, as well as a bed fit for a queen, fully content with spoiling her rotten until she was comfortable… 

The second they got home, Makkachin made a beeline for the couch, declared it her’s, and ignored her treats completely in favor of begging at Victor’s feet instead. They spent the rest of the night watching dumb Russian soap operas while Victor talked to her like he could understand any of her responding barks.

It was the best night he’s had in years.

And now they’re sitting on the floor with Victor’s favorite slippers placed between them, Victor waiting patiently with bone-shaped treats in his right hand. 

(He _prays_ Yuuri knows how to fix these; Victor sneaked into the outside world to buy them from a Gucci store on an off-day after a competition, and came back feeling entirely drained of his magic with his wallet eight hundred dollars lighter…)

“Makka, bite!”

Makkachin bolts up from her sitting position, rushes forward, and then… carefully picks it up with her teeth and places it in Victor’s lap.

Victor stares, dumbfounded, then groans and rubs a hand over his face. Aren’t puppies supposed to be terrible? Digging through the trash or peeing in his bed? They’re not supposed to pick up perfectly chewable slippers like they’re carrying their own babies by the scruff of their necks — but he shouldn’t expect anything else from an angel like Makkachin.

He looks down at the dog lying on the floor now, butt in the air and tail moving so fast it’s blurry in his vision, then huffs and smiles fondly, reaching down to scratch behind her ears. “Why do you have to be such a good dog, huh?”

She sneezes.

Victor rearranges the slobbery shoes and tries again. And again. And again. She eventually starts becoming a bit more aggressive with it, but ultimately does no damage even after an hour’s passed.

Victor picks her up and flops down on the floor, blowing a long exhale toward the ceiling that brushes against her face. She jolts on his chest and perks up, noisily flapping her ears against his cheek — Victor can’t help but laugh.

He sighs again a second later, this one really grabbing her attention, and finally sits up, cupping Makkachin’s face in his hands and looking down at her with the most serious expression he can muster while gazing into the eyes of a puppy. Maybe if he channels his inner-Yakov and gives her a strong pep talk like a real coach would, she’ll understand.

Or maybe he’s been around Yuri enough that focusing just right will grant him the ability to speak to animals too, like the powers rubbed off on him over the years. That could work, right? Magic’s real after all, maybe miracles are too… but he doubts it. 

“Makkachin Nikiforova,” he starts, “if you do this for me, I’ll sit here and scratch your belly for an hour…”

Makkachin blinks.

Right. No new powers, it seems.

“I’ll hand-make you dinner tonight — something special.”

She tilts her head to the side curiously.

He chews on his lip and thinks. “I’ll even let you eat the same thing as me!” 

Nothing.

“ _Makkaaaaa_ ,” Victor whines and flops her ears around with his hands. This is ridiculous; when did this become the way he spends his free time? If Chris found out Victor denied his invitation to a party, not to practice for the ice show, but to talk to his dog instead, he’d weep.

“I’ll get you a doggy boyfriend!” he finally exclaims.

Maybe it was the tone of voice, or maybe it was just the smell of desperation hovering around him like a terrible, clinging scent, but as soon as the sentence leaves his mouth, he has puppy paws on his chest and a face full of dog slobber.

Victor splutters and falls back onto the floor with a loud _thud_ , gently pushing her away while he fights off a fit of giggles and a poodle at the same time. 

“Yeah? Sound good?” He laughs, and she yips along with his excitement. “If you do this we could _both_ end up with boyfriends, Makka!” he cheers. 

He jumps to his feet then, and sets the slippers in place for what feels like the millionth time. Makkachin follows closely behind and Victor squeals when her cold nose bumps against his legs, but he quickly gets her back into position, sitting directly in front of him. 

This time, she charges forward and rips ‘em to shreds — Victor’s never felt more proud.

He spends the rest of his night pondering whether or not getting a second dog really _is_ the best idea, if only to fulfill his promise… but one hopeful and exciting thought enters his mind just seconds before he closes his eyes: _Hey_ , _maybe Yuuri has a dog too!  
  
_

**three.**

* * *

  
Patched Up is just as cute as the last time Victor saw it, standing tall in all it’s woodland glory, only this time, Victor can already feel Yuuri’s presence from the _outside_ — now that he knows what to look for. Makkachin seems to sense it too, as she stopped fussing on her leash and tugging forward so incessantly when they stepped up to the entrance.

There’s that same familiar warmth, that same pleasant tug in his chest; it bleeds out from the inside like a bucket of water spilling beneath the crack under the old door, seeping into his shoes and his socks until it settles deeply in his heart — a sensation that makes it obvious Victor and anybody else are always welcome here, and Victor feels it clear as day.

He tugs the door open and allows himself a chance to glance around the place once more, even if an image of the shop is practically burned into his brain by now from his previous visits — he can’t help it; this shop is _insane_.

Makkachin sniffs curiously at the floor, pulling as far as her leash will allow, and seemingly peering around in as much awe as Victor was the first time too; he mentally thanks whatever higher power there is that, besides being a shoe-eater now, Makkachin is so well trained. He doesn’t know what he’d do if she were to pop a squat and piss all over the floor out of nowhere like some puppies might… He’d probably just die. Is that an acceptable reaction? Victor thinks so.

He subtly looks around one of the shelves to see who’s manning the register this time, and smiles to himself when he sees a familiar head of inky black hair and the flutter of enchanting, blue wings — like brunnera flowers sprouting right off his back. The other fairy is there this time too, his back turned as he fiddles with a trinket sitting on the massive shelf against the wall.

This time, he doesn’t hesitate before sauntering over, Makkachin _click-clacking_ right alongside him before she settles at his feet against the counter.

Victor leans forward, donning his most flirtatious smile. “Fancy seeing you here, stranger.”

Thankfully, Yuuri doesn’t jump out of his skin this time, but he does jolt once he looks up from his phone, squeaks a bit, and a… cloud of rainbow glitter explodes above his head? Victor startles and his eyes widen — what does _that_ mean? Is that every emotion at once? Victor feels a sudden stone-sinking feeling in his chest and, oh god, is Yuuri _malfunctioning_?

Whatever’s happening, it makes the other fairy turn around and cackle at the top of his lungs when he sees it. Yuuri blushes scarlet.

“Are you—” Victor starts but doesn’t get a chance to finish as the green-winged fairy comes bounding towards him, smiling wide with his hand out to shake.

“Hey, I’m Phichit! I didn’t get to say much the last time you were here, but I’m a huge fan,” he says, then gives the fairy beside him a _look_. “... Yuuri is too!” 

Yuuri not-so-inconspicuously elbows him in the ribs.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he replies, biting back a laugh and firmly taking his hand. “I’m Victor.” 

Phichit already knows his name, clearly, but he hasn’t let the fame get to his head enough to stop introducing himself all together; his mother would smack him if he did.

“That, you are!” He takes a moment then to shamelessly look Victor up and down, like he’s studying every inch of him, and Victor barely suppresses a snort. 

“Wow, you were right,” he stage-whispers to Yuuri. “He _is_ hot—”

Yuuri clears his throat like a decade-long smoker and Victor hears a _thump_ from behind the counter. Phichit winces. 

“Anyway!” Yuuri _shouts_. Adorable.

“H-how can I help you? Did something happen with your skates?” The feeling shifts again, and he visibly pales, causing Victor’s gut to twist in turn. “Did they break again? If they did, I can fix them for free this time! Or—” His sentence is cut off by a sudden sneeze. 

They all pause and look down, the fairies leaning over the counter to find the source of the noise. Makkachin stares back with a wide doggy smile. 

“Is that a dog?” Yuuri breathes. 

Victor opens his mouth to clarify that, yes, it is a dog (what else would it be?) _—_ my _dog, actually, just a puppy; isn’t she the cutest? If you come over to my place sometime I can demonstrate the spectacular trick I’ve taught her in order to eventually sweep you off your feet!_ — but Yuuri is already speeding around the counter and sinking to the floor to shower the poodle in kisses.

Makkachin basks in the attention, immediately flopping across Victor’s shoes onto her back, and the sheer force of excitement that surges through the air has Victor almost swaying on his feet. 

So he was right! Yuuri _is_ a dog person! He’s most definitely husband material then — but Victor already knew that.

“Is this okay?” Yuuri asks, his radiant grin turning a bit sheepish.

Victor reassures him and extends a hand forward. “Go right ahead! I’m learning Makkachin’s quite the primadonna; she’ll take all the attention she can get.”

That’s something that became obvious immediately; Victor couldn’t even walk her here without at least fifteen people stopping to fawn over her. He was _so_ sure her tail was going to fall off with how fast it was wagging.

“Makkachin?” Yuuri smiles up at him and, _oh_ , the things that does to his heart… Victor nods. “That’s cute.” 

_Not as cute as you_ , Victor doesn’t say.

Phichit watches with fondness and Yuuri slowly gets to his feet, still slightly distracted as Makkachin hops on her hind legs to get his attention again, batting the air with her paws. 

Yuuri huffs and shakes his head, bending down to finish what he started. “I actually have a poodle too…” 

_Spoiled_ , Victor thinks. _I’ve had this dog for two days and she’s already_ so _spoiled_. 

And then his brain comes to a screeching halt and he starts doing mental cartwheels, bouncing off the walls inside his skull because, wait, a poodle? He has a _poodle_! What are the odds?!

“Really?” Victor grins, trying _very_ hard not to bounce on his feet. “What’s their name? Maybe we could have a doggy playdate some day!”

Doggy… playdate. Okay, well, he _almost_ said “date” — he’s getting there.

Victor doesn’t know what he said wrong but Phichit starts giggling like a madman, and for a brief second, the glitter around Yuuri flickers pink.

“Ah, his name’s…” Yuuri looks around nervously. “Vicchan.”

Victor feels like he’s missing an inside joke here — he knows he has a tendency to blurt out whatever comes to mind, but he thought he was doing a pretty good job of keeping things under wraps at the moment… apparently something slipped out that embarrassed him though — _whoops_!

He smiles anyway, earnest in his feelings. “That’s a lovely name.”

“... Yeah, I think so too,” Yuuri replies, a certain twinkle in his eye that Victor can’t decipher. 

The split second where Victor doesn’t respond, their eyes lock, and time comes to a standstill, the vigorous rush of emotion dying down to a gentle hum. Victor’s magic almost feels like it’s being _pulled_ out of him — like he wants to set it all free and start a blizzard right there in the shop, but he reins it in as best he can.

… And then he remembers they’re not alone and awkwardly coughs into his arm, lifting his bag up to remind them, and himself, why he’s there. “I’m actually here due to puppy problems.”

“Puppy problems?” Phichit asks with a smirk.

Victor sets the bag on the counter and pulls out his sorry excuse for a pair of slippers — what was once sparkling leather, black and brown, with a delicate gold chain stretched across the front is now a mess of torn up fabric covered in bite marks. Makkachin may have gotten a bit carried away.

“She tore up my favorite shoes,” Victor sighs, _so_ devastated. “Do you think you could fix these too?”

“Are those Gucci slippers?” they ask in unison. 

“Ah, uh… maybe.” Victor shrugs. “They were only a couple hundred.”

Yuuri splutters. “You dropped a couple hundred on _slippers_?!”

Victor blinks, taken aback. “Well... nearly a thousand, actually.”

“Oh, I like this guy.” Phichit smiles.

Yuuri looks around like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, and then down at his feet — mentally calculating the price of his own shoes in comparison, if the sudden confusion Victor feels pushing into his own brain is anything to go by; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that.

“Well, what do you think, _Yuuuuri_?” 

Yuuri shakes his head, snapping back to reality and blushing at the sound of his name. “I-I might need some extra help from Phichit, but… yeah. I think we could even finish the job today.” He looks to Phichit, who nods. “We haven’t been super busy.”

“Great!” Victor allows himself to bounce on his feet this time, grinning ear to ear. Then a light goes off in his head and he just can’t resist asking, “Can I stay here and watch you guys work?”

If Victor doesn’t have the guts to ask Yuuri today, well, he’ll just do what he can to stick around for as long as possible. He was a little disappointed last time, when he didn’t get to witness the extent of Yuuri’s abilities — the magic, focus, and dedication that goes into his craft, to creating such beautiful blades with the fairy’s own signature charm attached.

Every time he glides across the ice now, he feels like a tiny Yuuri is trailing right behind him or sitting on his shoulder, cheering him on as he skates through bursts of magnificent glitter.

Yuuri flounders, then exhales a shaky breath, clearly unsure. “... You really want to?”

“Of _course_ he does — it’s fun to watch you work, Yuuri!” Phichit smacks his arm over the counter.

“I know _you_ think that. That’s why you never get anything done.”

Phichit pouts.

Victor watches the exchange in amusement — this is the most comfortable he’s seen Yuuri act so far, teasing smiles while he jokes with a friend, even if his posture remains a little stiff. Victor gives Phichit a mental thank you.

“Absolutely!” Victor agrees. “I’m quite fond of just looking at you anyway. I’m curious if watching you work would be even _more_ entrancing.”

Ah, there it is — couldn’t hold it in this time. 

Yuuri stands there resembling a fish for a good ten seconds. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Then a confused, “ _eeehhh_?” leaves his mouth and nothing else.

Phichit whistles. “Damn, that was good… You gonna say no to that, Yuuri?”

Yuuri jumps then, feeling a sudden, desperate urge to put as much space between the two of them as he can, and scurries off behind the counter again. Victor tries to put up some sort of mental block to mask the pang of disappointment that hits him square in the chest. 

“A-ah, well…” Yuuri fidgets in place. “If you really want to stay, I won’t stop you. You can come to the back room with us too? If you’re comfortable with that!”

“Yuuri! I would be honored!”

His disappointment is promptly extinguished, the grin stretching across Victor’s face likely visible from Mars, and he doesn’t even try to hide it this time. He pushes all of his feelings into one tangled ball of electric positivity and throws it at Yuuri with everything he has, shining it like the brightest spotlight as Yuuri takes centerstage in his heart. 

A rush of affection fills the room in response, and Yuuri smiles.

It turns out that restoring a pair of designer shoes takes quite a bit longer than Victor had anticipated — three hours longer, to be exact — and even though those are precious hours Victor could spend skating instead, he can’t find it in himself to care. 

Those few hours are blissful. 

They huddle together in the surprisingly cramped work room, not a window in sight, and only a few scattered lamps to light the darkness. Phichit explains it’s because him and Yuuri tend to get easily distracted, and if there were massive windows in a building surrounded by forest, they’d focus on the cute rabbits hopping down the trail instead of getting any work done.

They talk, they laugh, and Victor leans in a little too close to Yuuri’s workspace as often as he can get away with while Phichit shoots them knowing looks and Yuuri gets increasingly more flustered — all while Makkachin takes turns snoozing in their laps. 

The air is stifling with a tension Victor can’t quite put his finger on — still struggling to differentiate his own feelings from Yuuri’s, and deciding whether or not the feelings are entirely positive too. He backs out of popping the date question a total of five times while he plays tug-of-war with his emotions (or someone else’s?) and an anxiety that feels entirely new simmers in his belly… He eventually backs off and decides to ask another time, but he enjoys the rest of his day there nonetheless. 

He watches in wonder as Yuuri shuts his eyes and brushes his fingers along the ruined leather, like a pianist performing the most delicate song for an audience of two — and that’s when Victor realizes he was right: Yuuri really is, somehow, even more amazing while he works. 

The fabric seems to slowly bind together with every touch that swipes across it — strings reaching out like hands, desperately grabbing until they cling to one another and stay, the leather shining good as new. The more focused Yuuri gets, the less intense the energy in the room feels, and Victor smiles as he watches the fairy settle in his seat. 

Whenever he needs help, he taps Phichit on the shoulder, who reaches out from the project he’s working on to do so. The leather stitching morphs together instantaneously under his touch, instead of slowly right before his eyes like Yuuri’s magic seems to. 

When Victor asks about it, Yuuri explains his birth powers are related to emotions — feeling others, pushing _his_ feelings outward, reading auras — but he learned the magic of repairing from his father, and prefers it as a career over anything else.

“It keeps my mind busy,” he says. “I like it.” 

Victor can understand that — though he’s entirely guilty of breaking that concentration once or twice by blowing snowflakes against Yuuri’s cheek just to see him smile. 

At the end of the session, Victor’s shoes look like they were bought right out of the store, squeaky clean with not a bite mark in sight, and he just _has_ to hug both fairies after that. 

Once the back room is tidied up and Makkachin stirs from her nap, Yuuri lets him pay up front before seeing him out, and Victor feels giddy like he’s being walked home on prom night all the way to the front door.

“Thanks again, _Yuuuuri_ ,” Victor croons. “You’re a saint.”

Yuuri laughs lightly and scuffs his shoe against the floor. “I’m always here to help,” he mumbles, eyes darting around the room. “I’m just glad you think my work is good enough to come back a second time…” His eyes finally land on Victor’s and he opens his mouth to say more, but the words get lodged in his throat; Victor can feel the hesitation swirling around him.

Yuuri shakes his head, as if to physically expel the previous thought, and settles on, “Have a good rest of your day.” Then he smiles and bends down to lovingly scratch Makkachin’s ears. “You too, Makka.”

After a few more smiles and waves, they finish their goodbyes, and Victor starts the trek back home holding a pair of slippers to his chest like they’re something precious.

 _Next time_ , he thinks. _I’ll ask him next time_ …   
  


* * *

  
Victor knows he’s got it bad when instead of taking advantage of the rink being empty all night, he accepts an invitation to the skating team’s party _just_ to sob with Georgi over how in love he is.

While also very fucking drunk.

“Georgi, you don’t _understand_. You don’t — _hic!_ — you don’t…” 

Georgi leans over and slings an arm around Victor’s shoulder (deadweight, _very_ heavy), nearly squishing their cheeks together. “Trust me, Vitya, I do,” he grumbles. 

His breath _reeks_ of vodka, acrid and warm right in his face… _Bad_ vodka. Why is there _bad_ vodka at a Russian party? 

“Do you?!” Victor exclaims because, _does he_ , like, _actually_? Has he _seen_ the sublime being that is Yuuri Katsuki — the wondrous, captivating fairy with wings as blue as the sea, and eyes a matching depth?

… Or has he just heard Victor wax poetic about the man one too many times? Whatever. 

“Georgi, he’s _gorgeous_. He’s perfect, he’s amazing, and he’s _nice_! He looks good _and_ he’s nice? That doesn’t — _hic!_ — that doesn’t _happen_!” Victor’s pretty sure he’s shouting, but he really can’t help it; he needs to _release_ his feelings, and screaming seems like the perfect solution. 

Is this why Yuri yells all the time? He thinks he’s starting to get it now.

“Maybe he’s a monster in disguise,” Georgi drawls, swirling a mysterious concoction around his solo cup, “reeling you in just to eat you later. I saw something about that on the news earlier, y’know.”

Victor hums and takes a massive swig of his own drink, just to nearly spit out. It tastes like _grapes_ — Victor _hates_ grapes — who gave him this? He scans the room with narrowed eyes before sighing pitifully and choking down the rest. “I think I’d let him.”

Before Georgi can respond, a peeved little Yuri comes stomping into the kitchen clad in leather and a horrifying amount of leopard print. Victor needs to have a serious talk with him later.

He stops and crosses his arms, frowning like they’ve personally wronged him just by existing, and snarls, “Are you guys done being whiny, emo bitches on the floor? Some of us need to actually _use_ the kitchen.”

Oh… when did they end up on the floor?

Victor groans and sits up as much as his body will allow, then sinks back down against the cupboards. The black and white checkers on the linoleum seem to blend together the longer he stares, until Victor can’t make much sense of anything anymore, and just sits there, smitten and intoxicated… love-drunk, if you will. Victor feels amazing and terrible, simultaneously.

“My Anya was very beautiful too,” Georgi continues, completely ignoring Yuri’s presence. “Have I ever told you that?”

Victor blinks slowly and points a finger in the air, thinking hard. “Y’know, I think you might’ve…” At least a hundred times.

“Mm, can I tell you again?”

“I don’t really—”  
  
“Victor, I was gonna _marry her_!”

“ _Alright_.” 

And that’s how Victor gets roped into an hour of Georgi babbling vaguely creepy nonsense about missing his dear, precious Anya, and how he’ll never let her go once he gets his hands on her again. Okay, _definitely_ creepy — but Victor’s way too out of it to formulate proper sentences right now, so he lets the Disney villain rambling continue. 

While Georgi whines, his mind easily lingers on thoughts of marriage as his addled brain flashes pretty pictures of extravagant weddings — crystals hanging from altars like ice, dashing suits, and doggy ring bearers… _true, true love_.

Victor wants a romance like his parents’ — one that goes down in history for simply being that amazing, that inspiring, that _intense_. He can’t help it; it’s what he grew up hearing.

As much as young Victor appreciated the children's stories that were dumbed down to reach his comprehension level and lull him into a calming sleep, he loved his _parents'_ stories even more. He’d beg them, every night, to tell at least _one_ that took place during the early years of their relationship, the parts he hadn’t been around to witness yet — so completely desperate to hear more of the love story that’s discussed around town, even today.

It would often backfire though, and in the end he’d be too excited to sleep at all. 

Once upon a time, some years ago, his _mother_ was the one taking the figure skating world by storm — donning the title “living legend” for herself, and _never_ allowing the chance for it to be ripped away from her. Her powerful ice magic combined with her astounding musicality was a force to be reckoned with, and she knew it — yet somehow, after meeting Victor’s father, she became even _better_.

His father, Avros, was just a fan at the time, an ice conjurer with powers so weak he might as well have had no powers at all. He spent his days refining his understanding of magic in general because of it, and with his figure skating dreams dead and gone, he moved on to become a spell creator himself — his sights set on university and teaching those like him instead. 

At least, that’s what he thought, until one day he was dragged to a local ice show to witness the glorious Irina Bodrova in person, and all past desires hit him like a freight train. After one too many drinks from the flask hidden in his coat, he asked her on a date without the slightest idea of what was to come. 

A year later, they were a legendary skating pair — breaking records left and right and creating moves that didn’t even _exist_ before their magic collided. With his father’s knowledge of spell casting (and his winsome step sequences), combined with his mother’s technical skill and discipline, they were untouchable. 

Avros means golden, and with their passion and dedication as one, his mother meeting him where he was, that’s exactly what they were — together. 

Yuri will forever tease him over wanting such “fairytale bullshit (your parents just got lucky)”, but Victor thinks it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to strive for. After all, he just has to find the right person. And deep down… he really hopes he’s found them. 

“‘s okay,” he slurs, lazily patting Georgi’s back while he whines into Victor’s chest. “There, there, little Georgi.”

Georgi groans, voice muffled, “I’m a day older than you.” 

“Mm, that’s nice,” Victor hums. He hopes that was a decent response to whatever Georgi just said. 

Without opening his eyes, he blindly reaches up to search for the discarded drink he set on the counter during his friend’s dramatic monologue. His fingers tap against the cup a few times, nearly spilling it on his head, before he grasps it with a triumphant, “ _Woo_!”

A great achievement indeed!

They sit in silence for a minute, Victor cringing through every gulp of grape flavored hell still sloshing around his cup and praying somebody comes into the kitchen with a different assortment of drinks to choose from eventually… He could just stand up and get something else, but he _really_ doesn’t want to move anytime soon.

The music thumping in the living room is so loud it rattles his bones and the bass vibrates in his throat — some awful pop music that sounds like twenty other songs Victor’s heard before blaring through the speakers Yuri bought, and the kitchen is surprisingly quiet in comparison.

Which gives Victor the visceral urge to just _talk_. 

“Did you know Yuuri has a poodle?” he asks excitedly. He doesn’t wait for Georgi’s cue to continue. “His name’s Vicchan and— _hey_ , that kinda sounds like my name, doesn’t it? That’s cute… _Oh my god_ , he’s so cute.”

So cute. Unbelievably cute. Maybe Georgi’s monster theory is correct; there’s clearly no other explanation. Yuuri simply being _born like that_? Yeah, right!

“Yuuri, I mean, not the dog,” he clarifies after a beat. “Actually, no, I bet the dog is cute too. Nevermind.”

Georgi decides to put an end to his impression of a human octopus and peels himself away to stare mournfully up at the ceiling. “I’m more of a cat person.”

Well, that is just _wrong_. 

Yuri is the _only_ person he’s accepted as being a cat person… because when he expressed his clear dislike for the fluffy demons, he was threatened with a good curb stomping.

“... You really are weird, huh, Georgi?”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because Georgi flings himself onto Victor once more, grasping at his shirt and _tugging_ — now he has to iron it later, _damn it_ — while his eyes glisten with unshed tears. The makeup he put on before the party is already smeared halfway down his face, and Victor can’t help but feel bad for the guy. While Victor’s never had much of a love life until now, Georgi’s has been downright catastrophic from the get-go. 

“Oh god, is _that_ why she left me?” he asks, absolutely anguished. “Because I’m _weird_? I thought people valued individuality!” 

Victor is _way_ too drunk to be having this conversation and his brain processes that last word as, “ _indivi-sdjfkdsfh_ ,” as he stares back at Georgi with confusion written all over his face in big, bold letters. Weren’t they talking about Yuuri? Or, no… cats? Victor’s lost.

“Uh…”

“I didn’t even get the chance to propose before she left me for some… _some_ —” Georgi breaks off in a growl and knocks his head against the cupboard, a cluster of tiny icicles erupting from his hair and falling to the floor. 

Victor picks one up and rolls it between his fingers in lieu of responding, still confused, and if he’s being honest, a little bored. He wants to talk about his Yuuri again! Is this an appropriate time? 

_Probably not_ , the very small and quiet voice of Sober Victor reasons in his mind… Pity. 

Georgi lifts his hand up and pouts, shooting snowflakes in the shape of hearts like smoke rings from his fingers. They all break in half, seconds after appearing.

“I still have the ring though,” he sighs. “In my bag. Do you, uh…” He blinks tiredly for a moment and smacks his lips in a way that reminds Victor of his grandpa. “Wanna see it?”

Georgi is staring at him like the world could crumble at any moment, and Victor would be the biggest asshole in the _world_ if he were to say no, so he sucks it up and brushes a hand across his face, mentally preparing himself to stand. “Sure, Georgi.”

With that, Georgi’s up like a shot, seemingly sober in an instant as he sprints to the living room to get his skating bag. Victor watches in awe as he pushes through the throngs of people with ease, all while Victor takes a solid minute just to get to his feet. He slams noisily into the cupboards, slips on a mysterious puddle on the floor, nearly brains himself on the counter, then finally sways in place as he stands.

When Georgi comes back, his chest is heaving like he ran a marathon, and in his hand is a tiny velvet box. Victor _oooh_ ’s over it and reaches out to touch, but Georgi snatches it back to cradle the box protectively against his chest.

“Don’t touch,” he scolds, and Victor frowns like a child. 

Then, like he’s handling a newborn baby, he carefully maneuvers the box in his hands and opens it to reveal a shiny diamond ring, nearly blinding even in the dim light of the kitchen.

“I spent way too much money on this… but it’s what she deserves!” he exclaims, making Victor jump, then plucks it out of the groove keeping the ring in place. He pushes it snugly onto his pinkie finger and holds his hand up to admire it, and Victor has to squint just to keep his eyes focused.

He shakes his head miserably and sighs. “Sometimes I just put it on so it doesn’t feel like a waste of money.”

“That’s…” Victor closes his eyes, because for some reason they just won’t stay open, and reaches up to tie his hair in a ponytail. He groans when he realizes he doesn’t have a hair tie. “Sad,” he concludes. “Yeah… Georgi, that’s _sad_.”

He just ignores him. “Wait, here, let me show you under the light!”

Georgi’s first mistake is assuming that the dull, orange lightbulb that shines over the kitchen sink will show off the engagement ring in all it’s shiny glory the way he wants it to — and his second is assuming that Victor can move more than an inch right now without collapsing. 

Georgi grabs his arm in a vice-like grip and tugs him forward, and somehow, in their drunken stumbling, Victor manages to slam his foot against the cupboard, fly forward, and slap his hand on the wall to keep upright, turning the garbage disposal on in the process — all while Georgi trips over Victor’s gangly legs and sends the ring flying… right down the drain.

“ _NO_!” Georgi wails in horror and the sink makes an awful, gritty, metallic sound, piercing their eardrums for a good five seconds before Victor remembers to turn it off. He lurches forward to hit the switch, as does his stomach with his quick movements — _eugh_ — and allows the chaos to fully sink in once the kitchen grows silent.

His poor friend is staring at the sink like it just murdered his entire family. 

“... Do we fish it out?” Victor asks, nearly whispering. His stomach twists with a vicious guilt and he briefly wonders how much more intense it’d feel if Yuuri were around.

Georgi sinks to the floor, not in a graceful, slow descent, but a loud, aggressive _thud_ ; one that leaves him looking like a messy heap of folded limbs on the tile. “I think I’m just gonna stay here for awhile,” he mumbles into his arms.

Victor stares for a moment, just to make sure he’s still breathing and his broken heart didn’t actually kill him. “Okay,” he sighs, “have fun.”

Georgi responds with a, “ _hnnnggg_...”

Victor takes that as his cue to rush into the living room and find the only person he’s comfortable begging for help. He pushes through the crowd of sweaty bodies, all pressed against each other and absolutely _tanked_ , while his nose wrinkles at the scent of excess magic, wafting through the air like stifling pheromones. 

When he spots a leopard print hoodie from across the room, he bolts for it.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Yuri says when he jumps up to sit on the counter. 

Victor walked up to him in the living room, only to find he was having a screaming match with Mila _just_ to see who could scream the loudest… Surprisingly, Yuri didn’t seem to be winning, and he was all too eager to assist Victor this time around.

Victor pries the rubber over the drain back with his fingers, and tries not to gag while Yuri shines a flashlight they found in the junk drawer directly inside. He originally asked Mila to light a flame instead, but she was too worried the alcohol on Victor’s breath would cause his face to ignite, and that is something he’d _definitely_ like to avoid, thank you very much, so they took a different route.

“’m not an idiot… ’m drunk.”

Yuri smacks him upside the head with the flashlight and Victor squawks. “Drunk fucking idiot.”

“ _Ow_! Okay, _maybe_ …”

It takes some poking and prodding, some dry heaving into the other side of the sink, and a handful of times he’s worried Yuri will suddenly turn into a murderous psychopath and _switch it on_ , before he’s able to spot the ring. There, under a pile of nasty, old food, is a sparkling diamond.

He plunges his hand in — way too eager to be touching the inside of a dirty, old sink — and beams when he finally pulls it out. Yuri seems less enthused, but happily switches the light off and makes his way back to the party as soon as he can.

Victor gives the ring a quick rinse and _thoroughly_ washes his hands before holding it up to the light once more — only to wince at the sight of marred metal and chipped diamond, looking very much lackluster in comparison to its beauty beforehand. Whatever the engravement alongside an intricate snowflake design said is now completely scraped off, and he’s once again hit with a wave of guilt… and that’s when he gets an idea.

Victor shrieks in excitement and throws his arms up, nearly losing the ring a second time, and pounces onto Georgi’s dark form still lying motionless on the floor. “Georgi!” he squeaks. 

His rink-mate slowly rolls onto his back, jostling Victor, and stares back with bleary eyes… oh. Had he really fallen asleep on the floor? Whoops.

“It’s okay, I can get this fixed!” Victor shouts. Georgi’s face goes through a series of sleepy emotions until it finally settles on doubtful. 

“I’m serious!” he insists with a grin. 

They’re down to the last month of practice before the big festival hits, and because of that, Victor hasn’t been able to see Yuuri in _weeks_. He’s having major Yuuri withdrawals and is simply _dying_ because of it now, but this could be his chance! He finally has another reason, right here in his hands, to stroll into Patched Up again — and with it, he can declare his undying love and finally, _finally_ , ask the beautiful Yuuri Katsuki on a date!

“Yuuri can fix it! And if you let me take it in… maybe he’ll even add a love spell to it to help you get Anya back?” That’s definitely a stretch, and likely won’t happen at all, but it’s worth mentioning.

Georgi perks up, his eyes growing wide. “Really?”

“No, but—” Victor’s never been able to lie while he’s drunk, _goddamn it_. “ _Please_.”

Georgi huffs and falls back onto the floor with a groan, limbs spread out like some sort of gothic snow angel. 

Victor nearly reaches down to plug his nose, just to make him give in faster, but he finally responds before he can. “Fine,” he sighs, then he reaches up to grip Victor’s wrists with a pleading look as he cries, “go after your lover, Vitya. Cherish him!”

Victor is stunned into silence at the outburst and Georgi goes back to closing his eyes, lying dead like a character in a Shakespearean play… like he’s said before… Georgi is probably the _only_ person who could beat him in a competition regarding dramatics. 

Victor shakes his head and rolls over to lie beside him as a bout of nausea hits him once again. “Actually, I might wait awhile,” he mumbles. “‘m still very drunk.”

“God, me _too_.” Georgi groans and flips onto his stomach then, squishing his face against the tile. “... This _sucks_.”  
  


**four.**

* * *

  
“You need me to fix… an engagement ring?”

“That’s what I said, yes!” Victor bounces on his toes with his palms flat against the counter like an excited child. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” He beams.

Victor’s happiness is a fierce and tangible thing at the moment — weeks of not seeing Yuuri, but planning _exactly_ what he’d say the next time he did (all while trying to find an excuse to come back), is currently coming to a head now that he’s in the fairy’s presence again. He tries to tone it down as much as he can though, just because he’d hate for Yuuri to feel so overwhelmed.

After the absolute circus that was the skating party, Victor had to nurse a grueling hangover that somehow lasted _three days_ (he’s convinced now more than ever that grape flavored drinks are the direct spawn of Satan himself — or maybe someone just hated Victor enough to hex his drink?) and the only thing pushing him through it was the thought of seeing Yuuri again.

Georgi, on the other hand, had nearly forgotten what happened completely, and walked out of the guest bedroom the next morning looking like a dead raccoon with his makeup smeared around his eyes and his hair sticking straight up. Victor caught him up to speed while his head rested against the toilet bowl and he started crying all over again. It’s been an emotional few days.

But Yuuri is looking _extra_ handsome today in a black long-sleeve shirt that hugs his body in _all_ the right places and his hair pushed back — a small change that somehow makes him look like a completely different person, a side of Yuuri Victor hasn’t seen yet, but very much adores. The longer Victor stares (like the creep he is), the more he realizes Yuuri almost has an athlete’s body too — just a little softer in some places. 

He holds the ring up to the light and closes one eye as he spins it between his fingers, face scrunched up and adorable. Victor rests his chin in his palm and swoons. 

“Mm, yeah… very pretty,” Yuuri replies, setting the ring back down on the counter. “It looks… really expensive too.” 

“Oh, it was!” Victor says, smiling still. “I think it cost a little _too_ much honestly, but it was probably worth it.” He picks it up to inspect it for himself, sparkling in his hands the way things only do in cartoons. “Anya hasn’t seen it yet, but she has expensive taste, so I’m sure she’ll love it when the time comes.”

Victor hasn’t spoken to the witch enough to know what she’s really like, or what Georgi sees in her to be so beside himself over their breakup, but from what he’s picked up on, she has a major obsession with her looks and all things luxury. He’s sure if the ring weren’t chipped to hell and nearly destroyed, she’d never take it off. 

“Anya…” Yuuri says, voice slightly strained. Victor looks up in surprise when the sweet feeling in his stomach turns a bit sour. 

Yuuri seems to take note of the shift, along with the confusion in Victor’s eyes, because he clears his throat and plasters a smile across his face that Victor’s all too familiar with. “She sounds lovely.”

Victor falters a moment, then shrugs. “She’s alright, I guess.”

Yuuri looks a bit startled and confused at that and Phichit snorts from across the room. Victor looks between the two, hesitant and feeling surprisingly out of his depth all of a sudden. Is he missing something? The feelings swirling around his insides are just as puzzling and _extremely_ distracting; he couldn’t sort his thoughts out even if his life depended on it right now. 

Victor opens his mouth to ask if something’s wrong, if maybe he walked in on some friendship dispute and should just leave and come back another time — Victor’s fully aware his presence can be a bit, _ahem_ … _much_ at times, so if Yuuri needs him gone for whatever reason, he’ll leave immediately, if asked.

Even though he really, _really_ doesn’t want to… He’s been rehearsing how he’ll ask Yuuri out (with Makkachin, of course) since the night he pried that ring out with his dirty fingers.

But Yuuri beats him to it and changes the subject. “Y’know, you come in here an awful lot. Are you just _the_ most accident-prone person on the planet?” he asks, shooting for teasing, though it comes off a bit forced.

Victor watches as Yuuri pulls a wooden box out from under the counter, full of different fabrics once he opens it, and picks out the softest cloth in a shade of blue. “Mm, well,” Victor hums, leaning forward with a smirk, “what would you say if I told you I came here just because I missed you?”

Yuuri chokes on air and stops his movements before he can even begin polishing the ring, and Victor grins. He feels that familiar twist in his gut and flustered haze in his head; one that’s overwhelmingly positive, if a little embarrassed, and definitely not Victor’s own. 

The fairy huffs, a cloud of glitter erupting behind him, and goes back to polishing. “I’d ask if you’ve suffered any head injuries recently.”

“Yuuri!” 

Yuuri cracks a smile at that — one he fails miserably at trying to hide. Victor breathes a quiet sigh of relief when the tension in the air physically dissipates. 

“What?” He shrugs, eyes focused on his work. “Skating can be dangerous; it’s a reasonable question.”

Victor perks up, feeling a bit like Makkachin when her ears twitch in interest, and tugs a little on Yuuri’s sleeve. “Do you know a lot about figure skating?”

Of course he knows Yuuri’s at least somewhat interested in the sport, since he mentioned knowing who Victor was when they first met — or, according to Phichit, is a fan (a _fan_!) — but he’s curious how much he really knows. This could be another way to make the fairy feel more comfortable in Victor’s presence, less on edge if they were to share a common interest — especially if he’s as fascinated with the sport as Victor is — because if there’s one thing that will get Victor talking even _more_ than usual, it’s figure skating.

And not just talking with other competitors, because the technicalities can get _so_ boring _so_ fast, and the conversations he has at banquets about what went wrong during performances, what someone’s going to do next, what Victor should be prepared to beat next time, are particularly draining — but getting to talk with _fans_? Real, _true_ fans of figure skating, who love it for the expressive art form that it is and everything that made Victor fall in love with it in the first place? That’s something else entirely. 

A mixture of excitement, anxiety, and… regret travels through the room like a light breeze.

“Ah, uh…” Yuuri turns a little pink, then sets the ring down to busy himself with something on the back shelf. “I’ll answer that some other time.”

Victor pouts. “Secretive little fairy, you are…”

If he’s reading the room correctly, then Yuuri’s _definitely_ upset about something, but at least that pulls a laugh out of him — even if it is a little faint.

Yuuri bends down to reach the cupboards below the shelf and Victor watches contentedly, the way Yuuri’s wings continuously flutter up and down like a butterfly sitting perched as it rests. He eventually turns around with a microscope in hand, to check over the state of the ring more closely, and Victor notices the way his mouth has dropped into a frown.

It catches Victor off guard, and his eyebrows raise in surprise — he hadn’t even noticed the shift in mood this time… almost like Yuuri had tried to hide it.

Yuuri sets the clunky machine on the counter without a word, and Victor’s almost too afraid to say anything to break the silence. Yuuri’s upset — maybe even annoyed — and Victor would be hard pressed to say what for. 

The fairy coughs into his arm, then looks up at Victor with a withdrawn, professional stare that he’s never actually seen directed at himself before, and it sets Victor on edge immediately. “How soon do you need this finished?”

Victor straightens up. “Well, I don’t think the wedding is gonna happen anytime soon, so you can take all the time you need,” he replies. 

Victor thinks the last thing Yuuri needs right now is to be rushed, and his bright idea of asking him out is steadily growing dimmer and dimmer. Maybe today’s not the best time.

“... Right.” Yuuri nods, face unusually blank. “And what did the engravement say before you, uh… what did you say? Dropped it down the garbage disposal?” His lips quirk up at that.

Victor grabs onto that semblance of a smile and runs with it, nodding enthusiastically. He hadn’t told Yuuri the entire story though… He was too embarrassed to admit he’d nearly gotten blackout drunk with a friend just to babble nonsense about the man standing _right_ in front of him. 

He feels his face heat up as he admits it again. “Okay, so maybe I am the most accident-prone person in the world.” He laughs. “But it said, ‘ _my heart is in your hands_ ,’ in Russian. Want me to stick around to show you how to write it?” he asks cheerfully.

Yuuri’s tone comes out clipped and cold, sending an entirely different kind of chill through Victor’s body than he’s used to — bitter and piercing as he replies. “No, it’s fine.”

This time the sinking feeling in his stomach is all his own.

Victor shifts on his feet and wrings his hands behind his back. “Are you okay, Yuuri?” he asks hesitantly.

“Huh? Oh!” Yuuri shakes his head and brushes a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m… fine.” 

Victor finds that _very_ hard to believe, especially as Yuuri’s eyes start flitting around the room and that telltale swell of emotion begins to leak through the blockade in Yuuri’s mind again. 

The fairy sighs, long and hard. “Actually, I have a lot of projects lined up for the next couple of weeks. I think it’d be best if you left now so I have time to work on those,” he says with a calm, plastic smile. “I’ll just send the ring back to you when it’s done, so you don’t have to come all the way out here again.”

“You’ll… send it back to me?” Victor blinks, bemused. He sneaks a glance behind Yuuri and notices the shelf is actually _emptier_ than usual — it doesn’t seem like he has much to work on at all.

“Yep. We exchanged info the first time you came around, so I have your address on the computer.” He waves a hand, nonchalant, then picks the ring back up to polish it as he speaks. “Have a nice day, Victor. I’ll fix your ring right away.”

Victor almost doesn’t know what to do with himself now. The unspoken rule of human interaction indicates that this is _definitely_ his cue to leave, and possibly never come back if the look on Yuuri’s face is anything to go by, but his feet feel stuck to the floor. 

Did he do something wrong? He didn’t even get a _chance_ to ask like he’d planned, and now he’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to. 

Victor turns to see if Phichit is watching all of this unfold too, and he definitely is, leaned against the back wall with a clock in his hand and a matching frown on his face — though his seems a little more calculating than angry.

Right. So it’s two against one, it seems.

Victor clears his throat and turns back with a charming, unbothered smile — masking his emotions, at least outwardly, like the media trained angel he is. “Alright then,” he replies, smooth and steady. “Thank you so much for your help. I’m looking forward to the finished product.” 

Yuuri’s stale expression wavers a bit, but he nods nonetheless. 

Victor feels like a kicked puppy with his tail tucked between his legs, and he’s sure Yuuri knows it too, but he manages to keep his face perfectly neutral — and with another parting nod, he pushes his hair out of his face with more force than necessary and turns on his heel, heading toward the exit with his head held high. He tries _very_ hard not to slam the door on his way out. 

But as he walks down the trail back home and replays the scene over and over in his mind, digging around for what he _possibly_ could have done wrong, he can’t even find it in himself to be mad… because at least he got to see Yuuri again.   
  


* * *

  
He spends that night cuddling with Makkachin on his too-big couch, mumbling into her fur about his terrible day as she listens intently and never once interrupts — because she really is a man’s best friend, even if she can’t understand him.

He laments the loss of a relationship that hadn’t even begun, something he was so close to obtaining, yet let slip right through his fingers. And all because _he_ fucked up… and he doesn’t even know how.

Dedicating his entire life to figure skating, such a harsh and lonely thing, means he never truly realized what he was missing out on — what life and love _really_ were; too focused on being the best, and the best _alone_ , that he never even got a taste of it. But _now_ … now that he knows exactly what he’s been living without for so long, having it ripped away so suddenly hurts more than he expected. 

But he’ll be fine. He’ll deal with it. He always does.

A week later a small, black pouch arrives in the mail with the ring inside. No note. No glitter.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *is the one writing these characters*  
> Me: VICTOR YOU IDIOT.
> 
> Also, somebody please give Georgi a hug lmfao.
> 
> **Comments & kudos are greatly appreciated!!! Comments especially encourage me to keep posting (｡•̀ᴗ-)**


	3. Chapter 3

**five.**

* * *

  
The next time Victor sees Yuuri, the setting’s a bit different, and the meeting is completely unexpected. 

Which is why Victor almost has a _heart attack_ when he turns down an aisle in the grocery store looking for way-too-expensive dog food, only to find Yuuri standing there studying bottles of potions.

Victor promptly turns as fast as he can and slams into a rack of potato chips before fleeing the scene and nearly sprinting to the other side of the building while his heart pounds away in his chest… The building’s not very big though, so he just prays a canned food display is enough to hide all six feet of him.

He can find dog food elsewhere; Makkachin won’t mind — this store was just the closest one to his house. It’s fine. He’ll leave his basket right here on the floor and run out like nothing happened and… he’s… it’s _fine_.

Except it’s _not_ fine, at all, and Victor truly feels like he’s going to be sick — Victor Nikiforov: living legend, suave gentleman, and absolute sweet talker is going to blow chunks right here on the floor in front of a mother and her child just trying to pick out fruit next to him because he ran into his _crush_ (man he’s madly in love with).

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to rein in the absolute mess of emotions raging inside him because he’s almost _positive_ Yuuri is able to feel it from across the room, through aisles and aisles, and what if he _knows_ it’s Victor? Like each person has their own signature thing attached to their feelings that he’s not even aware of — weird empath things… He doesn’t want Yuuri to know he’s actually losing his mind over here.

But he’s pretty sure any empath within a twenty mile radius knows by now.

It’s been two weeks since he last saw Yuuri — since the weird turn of events that Victor is _still_ in the dark about (what did he _do_?) — and even though he’s gone that long without seeing the man before, this time felt different. 

This time he had no _next time_ to look forward to; no _next time_ at the shop, no _next time_ asking him out, no _future_ between them. Yuuri was mad and sent him away, making it clear Victor was nothing more than an annoyance now and it _hurt_. And it was during those weeks that Victor tried desperately to fill a sudden void in his heart that he realized has been there all along. Yuuri was just the one who filled it.

How pathetic must he seem to cherish minute interactions with a handyman who probably thinks of him as nothing more than an obnoxious customer? Victor stopping by _again_ , practically harassing the guy at his work, likely didn’t help either. 

This was just the first time Victor was _so_ sure he’d found something special, so he clung to it… Maybe Victor deserved to be pushed away. 

After that realization, Victor swore to never go back to Patched Up again. It was obvious his visits were a distraction and he needed to stay far, far away; get back in the groove of a strict athlete’s routine even while away on “vacation”, try to remember what he even _did_ before he met Yuuri — what he did before he had something to be excited about again. 

Chris insisted that something they _had_ to do to cheer Victor up was breaking his strict routine completely and going out for a night… but that only ended with Victor back on Chris’s couch, sobbing into a tub of ice cream (that he ate _all by himself_ ) while Chris gave him awful, awful advice.

Yakov doesn’t need to know about that veer in routine though. 

He avoided every shop and bar that fairy’s often frequented too, just to make any accidental run-ins like _right now_ less likely to happen, but the universe seems determined to bring them together — Victor can’t decide if he’s grateful or furious for it. 

He opens his eyes again and rests his head against the wall as he stares up at the ceiling, silently counting to ten and steeling himself to make a run for it. He has to walk past that aisle again, but if he moves quick enough, maybe Yuuri won’t notice him. Or maybe he already left, while Victor was too busy being a freak and hiding in the corner of a grocery store to notice.

He can do this. He can _totally_ do this. Even if Yuuri does see him, it’s fine — Victor will just walk by and pretend he doesn’t even notice him at all, pretend that the beautiful fairy who’s made a mess of his emotions isn’t standing _right there_ , completely unbothered.

Victor feels stupid. Totally stupid — _very_ stupid. He’s a grown man, yet he’s running around trying to avoid the guy who _hurt his feelings_. Maybe he should call Georgi after this, have another cry session without the alcohol this time. He’d probably understand. 

He groans inwardly and the basket in his hand grows a bit colder, his powers leaking out alongside his distress to coat the handle in a sheet of ice. He closes his eyes once more and takes a long, deep breath — and then he goes for it.

His shoes squeak under his sudden turn and he darts left, head down, quick on his feet, tunnel vision directly toward the exit; he’s almost there, _almost there_ — 

He crashes directly into someone with a loud _oof!_ as their chests slam together, just barely stops his basket from flying out of his hand, and finds himself nearly nose to nose with… Yuuri.

 _No, damn it! This was not part of the plan, this was_ not _part of the plan_ … Victor is _panicking_. He feels like a snowstorm is about to blow out of the top of his head.

They stand in silence for much longer than what’s appropriate, mouths opening and closing while Yuuri’s big, worried eyes bore into Victor’s own, standing stock-still at the end of the aisle. His stomach pushes and pulls like a violent tide, an anxiety that doesn’t belong to him broiling around his insides; an anxiety that he… missed. How do you _miss_ feeling anxious?

He tries to keep his own feelings locked away, under wraps and tucked far into the corners of his mind, so the palpable sense of _anger_ , _sadness_ , _longing_ , _confusion,_ and _relief_ aren’t so obvious. But if the way Yuuri’s eyes immediately soften is anything to go by, Victor definitely fails at doing so.

He jerks back when he realizes his fingers are still tightly wrapped around Yuuri’s forearms from steadying himself, and tries not to blush at the light flecks of snow left behind on the fabric of the fairy’s coat. 

That snaps both of them out of whatever trance they’d fallen into and Yuuri’s wings beat frantically behind him as they step apart, a storm of glitter fading away in midair. The store owner’s probably glad that stuff isn’t real — it’d be hell to sweep up.

“Victor…” Yuuri breathes and blinks up at him, mouth parted in surprise. Victor feels much the same.

He feels his shoulders relax at the sound of Yuuri’s voice, an immediate reaction, like he’s been tense since the day he walked out of Patched Up and hasn’t unwound since. He pushes his ever-growing nervousness aside then, and finally allows himself to speak to the man he’s missed so much. “Yuuri—” 

A shrill alarm blaring throughout the grocery store makes them both jolt a foot in the air, Victor moving backwards and Yuuri flying forward, nearly toppling over a shelf of different potions, the bottles clinking noisily in his ears — but it’s nothing compared to the sound currently roaring through the air, so loud it’s almost deafening, till he can barely focus on anything else.

Yuuri clings to his coat this time, looking frantic as his eyes search for the source of the noise, around the aisles, near the registers, up at the ceiling. 

“Oh my god, what is that?” Yuuri asks, his grip tightening.

Victor is just as confused, disoriented as his heart thunders against his ribcage for a multitude of reasons, and the shoppers around them only aid to heighten the sudden chaos. Strangers speed past them in a frenzy, all searching for an answer as to what’s happening, and he swears he can feel Yuuri’s own heart thumping against his chest too. 

They both flinch when bursts of magic shoot high above the aisles next to them as a mass panic seems to set in.

“No clue,” Victor replies. 

Yuuri looks up at him and deflates, like he was hoping Victor would have all the answers — and just as he’s about to fake that confidence, bring forward that comfort the fairy seems to need, a jaded looking young man with black hair and heavy eyebrows comes walking down the aisle.

They both startle, taken aback by the man’s calm demeanor as he blinks at them with bored eyes. “We’re on lockdown,” he says simply. “I’m gonna close the blinds so it can’t see through the windows, but I’m gonna need you guys to sit in the back of the shop for awhile, so get comfortable.” He shrugs and looks down at his uniform shirt, picking at the lint near his nametag; _Seung-gil Lee_. “There’s a dragon passing over.” 

He walks away then, both men gaping at his back just as the lights in the building shut off, shrouding the room in a darkness that’s only cut through by the sun still shining high in the windows.

Now that the head-splitting alarm’s stopped, Victor can’t help the gasp that escapes him at the sound of thick wings beating heavy and slow through the air, along with the glimpse of a red tail dangling high in the sky, just out of sight where the window cuts off his line of vision. The only indication that the employee notices it at all is the way he speeds up his walk and drops the blinds a little faster than Victor thought he would.

“A _dragon_?” Yuuri hisses, smacking Victor’s arm in disbelief. “I didn’t even know there were dragons in Wandermere.”

The second spike of worry joining his own brings him back to the man in front of him, and Victor grabs onto his arm, dragging him toward the corner of the store farthest away from the entrance and windows… Though he’s sure a dragon could just crash through the ceiling if it really wanted to, but he doesn’t say that out loud — he’s trying to stay _calm_ here.

Yuuri stumbles along and presses his hand against Victor’s, warm and comforting as a trail of glitter, _glowing_ now, follows behind them in a pretty trail. “There aren’t — that’s probably one of the reasons we’re on lockdown,” Victor huffs and slides down against the wall to sit on the floor. Yuuri doesn’t hesitate to sit beside him, curling his legs up to his chest. “It’s probably lost and upset because of it… On top of also just being, I don’t know… an _angry dragon_.” 

Yuuri giggles at that, his head ducked down, and Victor feels himself relax the tiniest bit as the harsh fear in his mind and body, doubled on top of his own, loosens its grip. He lets himself smile a little.

The town outside, usually bustling with life and the sounds of its cheerful inhabitants, is eerily silent as the sound of large wings comes in and out every few minutes instead. That’s probably a good thing though — everybody’s likely inside, away from the danger that comes from a lost and irate dragon; a _full-grown_ dragon too, it seems.

They both cringe at the unmistakable sound of fire being blown across the sky, followed by a loud, animalistic grunt… At least no screaming follows it.

Victor’s mind flashes to the first dragon he ever saw as a child, blissfully unaware of the danger that comes with them. He’d been skipping along one of the many rivers in the forest, throwing rocks as far as his tiny arms would let him, while his mother sat back on the grass with a book in hand, content to let her son play and do as he pleased as she enjoyed herself on their day out. 

That is… until a baby dragon, blue and green, came shuffling out of a nearby cave, grunting and whining at the noise Victor was making. That small, dragons can’t do much more than cough up smoke, so Victor saw nothing wrong with running up to the creature and hugging it, cooing over it’s cute little wings and bright eyes. 

It seemed excited over the new company, especially since Victor was practically the same size as it, and nuzzled against Victor’s face, it’s rough scales messing up his hair. He was just about to look up and beg his mother to let him keep it as a pet, when he realized she was already storming toward him, yanking him up by the arm and teleporting them back home, just as the rumble of a mama dragon waking up could be heard from deep inside the cave. 

He’s grateful his mother ripped him away when she did, before he could have his head bitten off or be burnt to a crisp, but it was just so _adorable_ — even now, Victor still sort of wishes he could have one… 

“I wish they weren’t so mean,” Victor comments with a pout. “They’re kinda cute sometimes.”

Yuuri shoots him a withering glance. “You think fire-breathing monsters are _cute_?”

“Yeah!” He grins. “I’m friends with someone who’s kinda like that anyway.”

“... You’re weird,” is Yuuri’s hushed response, but he looks like he’s trying to hold back a smile, so Victor doesn’t take offense.

“Hey, you sound just like him!”

Yuuri just rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and sinks further into his little corner.

They sit in silence, a hush falling over the entire store; one that’s only broken by the quiet murmurs of family and friends reassuring each other or making idle conversation to pass the time. Victor can’t make out what they’re saying, but it’s a welcome distraction to the dread that starts to fill him up inside. This feeling might also be attached to Yuuri, but he’s sure that it’s his own this time too. 

Only now has it set in, that the man he’s been trying to distance himself from (when it’s the _last_ thing he wanted to do) is stuck right beside him in a locked grocery store, and he really has _nowhere_ to run… Unless he wants to run outside and risk being burnt to death. He considers it, but only for a second.

He chews on his lip until he tastes blood, a habit he doesn’t usually indulge in, but it seems Yuuri just has that effect on him — making him a happy, nervous, _crazy_ mess of a human being. Then he taps his fingers distractedly against the tile, refusing to turn his head to the right lest he make eye contact and… blow up into a million pieces or something, because that’s what it feels like is about to happen.

Ice forms under his fingertips and he busies himself with picking at the patches of frost with his nail.

He knows by now that Yuuri has problems with anxiety, which means Victor _also_ knows that Yuuri is feeling _just_ as tense as he is right now — and the feelings flip-flopping back and forth between the two of them, stacking on top of each other, inevitably becomes unbearable and topples over. He’s afraid Yuuri might make the refrigerator doors behind them explode any second too, so he tries to cut in before that can happen… but so does Yuuri.

“So, how are—” 

“How have you—” 

“Uh…” Yuuri stares at him, then moves his gaze back down to his hands. “You go first.” 

Victor clears his throat, creating more ice under his hands without meaning to. “I was just gonna ask how you’re doing,” he says quietly with a shrug. “... It’s been awhile.”

Yuuri huffs. “It’s only been two weeks.”

“That’s a long time in ‘haven’t seen Yuuri’ days.” Which is most definitely true. A day without Yuuri is depressing enough; _weeks_ is simply torture. Surely Yuuri knows that — _has_ to.

Yuuri looks up again, eyes narrowing as he forces his lips to stop twitching upward. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe a little,” he sighs easily. _But only for you_.

With the way glitter glows around Yuuri like an ever-present lamp in their dark corner, it’s impossible to miss the blush that makes an almost instant appearance — like he _felt_ what Victor was thinking. Victor has to sit on his hands to avoid reaching out; to avoid cooling the warmth flooding Yuuri’s cheeks with the icy pads of his fingers. 

“So, how are you?” Victor presses. Nervousness be damned — Victor missed talking to him.

Yuuri hesitates, then shrugs with a tiny smile. “I’m alright,” he replies. “Work’s picked up quite a bit, so I’ve been busy most days… which I appreciate.”

Victor thinks about how he’s never _once_ seen Yuuri around town until now — how he wasn’t even aware of the man’s existence until Victor went to _him_ ; about how his shelf that touches the ceiling is usually chock-full of broken things to fix, except for during his last visit; about how working keeps Yuuri’s mind busy, so he never seems to leave. 

“You work so _hard_ ,” Victor says, frowning. He leans his head against the glass door and folds his arms across his chest; the worker was right — they might as well get comfortable. “I think a little break every once in awhile would do you some good, don’t you think?”

“Says you,” Yuuri quips with an eyebrow raised.

Well… 

“I’m on a break right now!” 

“A break to prepare for an ice show and then jumping right back into competition,” he replies with a knowing look.

Victor pauses. 

“... It seems you know me well,” he eventually sighs, then puts on the voice of a boisterous announcer, “But I’ve got a reputation to uphold and all of Russia anticipating the next win! … So I have lots to do,” he finishes with a wan smile.

He shouldn’t have said that — _definitely_ shouldn’t have said that. Even with the smile on his face and his forced enthusiasm, Yuuri will, inevitably, see right through him. 

Yuuri cocks his head to the side like Makkachin does, his lips pursed as he studies Victor’s face, searching for something; at least, that’s what he assumes Yuuri is doing. Victor can feel the separate set of cogs turning in his own brain, trying to figure out something he’s not even aware of. 

Victor shifts his legs restlessly, crossing and uncrossing.

Yuuri eventually turns away, and when he speaks, his voice is soft. “Y’know, the only reason I’ve been so busy is because fans have been coming in for help with their banners dedicated to you — sewing and painting and all of that, since the festival’s in a week.” He falters, then angles his body a bit more in Victor’s direction instead of away from him. “They really like you.”

Victor doesn’t know how to respond to that because… well… yeah. That’s usually how these things go. But the thought of Yuuri, blushing and awkward, helping young skating fans paint pink little hearts across massive banners with his face on them — that has him stomping down a _very_ goofy smile.

Victor just nods. “Seems like a lot of people do.”

“No, I mean…” Yuuri shakes his head and lets out a grunt. Victor would laugh, but the fairy seems very serious all of a sudden — determined as his eyes lock with Victor’s, abrupt enough to make him startle. “Not a single person came in with one mentioning all of your wins. They were all just about how much they love you, or old pictures of you in your junior years—” Victor’s heart stops as his mind goes: _oh god, the rainbow tutus_. “Someone even had one with a picture of you and Makkachin on it.” He chuckles.

Victor doesn’t know where this is going exactly, but his demeanor softens nonetheless and he feels oddly choked up. It’s rare for him to have a heart-to-heart with someone, and that’s what this is starting to feel like. Usually talking about his own feelings, direct or not, is something he runs from. It’s daunting, uncomfortable. But if there’s one thing Yuuri just _is_ , so completely, it’s emotional — and Victor has been learning to embrace that, not just with Yuuri, but with himself too; slowly, but surely.

“I just mean… a lot of your stress is probably valid, but you should know that your town doesn’t just view you as some skating machine and nothing else,” he continues, voice hushed. “I think you put a lot of that pressure on yourself… and you’re just worried you’ll disappoint people.” He looks back down to pick at his nails. “They care about you. _I_ … The reason I gave you those blades wasn’t because I just view you as a champion either, even if the note made it seem that way. I just thought they’d make you smile.”

Victor’s swallows against the lump in his throat. Who knew such a simple sentence would have this effect on him: _I just thought they’d make you smile._ That’s it, Victor is putty in Yuuri’s hands. Forever. He’s done for. The man he’s been avoiding is now sitting sweetly beside him, uttering words that are peeling back every perfectly crafted layer he’s wrapped so tightly around himself; comforting him over things Victor hasn’t even admitted to. But to Yuuri, he’s sure those things have been obvious since the beginning.

Snowflakes fall from his eyelashes, and he rubs self-consciously at his face until he’s sure his eyes are red. “I…” 

When he feels that sharp twist in his stomach, that second anxiety rising high, Victor can’t help it — he laughs into his hands.

“I’m sorry, that was a lot. I—” Yuuri stops and does his usual flailing. “I shouldn’t have said all that… e-even though I meant what I said! I just… sorry. That was probably overwhelming and totally not my place to say. I don’t—I don’t know how your mind works. Maybe I’m way off about how you feel,” he babbles, flustered and beet-red.

_I think you are the only person who understands how my mind works._

“No, I—” Victor takes a deep breath. “Thank you. I think I needed to hear that.” He reaches out for Yuuri’s hand and it takes a second for Yuuri to give it to him, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to. Victor squeezes tight. “That was a good reminder.”

Yuuri just looks down at their hands and back up to Victor’s face with his eyes wide as ever, then nods and lets go.

“You sure you’re alright?” Victor asks, after a beat of silence passes.

“Huh?” Yuuri frowns. “Why would I not—” Victor gives him a _look_ and the fairy winces, his wings curling down around him with his mood. “Okay, I’ve been a little upset about something, but it’s not a big deal. I’m just easily bothered, so… I’ll get over it eventually.”

There it is. The confirmation that he definitely _was_ upset during their last meeting, and Victor wasn’t just making it all up in his head. He still doesn’t know _why_ though, and he can’t shake that feeling of guilt off his back no matter how hard he tries, even if he does feel completely clueless. 

In a weird way, he kind of hopes it _is_ his fault though. Because at least if he did royally fuck up, it’ll be his problem to fix — and maybe he can cheer Yuuri up again if he works on it fast enough. 

“You can tell me about it if you want to,” Victor says, then with a laugh, “We _are_ locked in a grocery store after all. There’s not much else to do, and I promise I won’t judge.” Yuuri looks back with an expression he can’t decipher, so Victor rushes to continue, “But you don’t have to of course! I… Nevermind, ignore me.”

“No, no, it’s okay!” Yuuri reassures him, reaching out to touch Victor’s arm, then snatching his hand back at the last second. “Uh, thank you. I just—I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet. Or ever will be? … I don’t know. I like to work things out on my own most of the time.”

Victor understands that, definitely. Contrary to popular belief, Victor isn’t as impulsive as he seems to be — he actually thinks about things a little _too_ much, and gets in his head about it. He just ends up choosing the most ridiculous answer as a way to stay entertained, even if it doesn’t do enough to keep his mood up forever. He never reaches out; he sorts things out and comes to a conclusion alone… but maybe that’s a bad habit he should put a stop to now.

“I get that.” Victor nods, then nudges his pinkie against Yuuri’s own. “Just know I’m always here… The annoying skater who always pestered you in your shop.”

Victor feels an abundance of emotions in response, some he’s not entirely sure he could ever put a name to, but they’re definitely split between: pleasant, and very _unpleasant_ … Victor doesn’t know what to do with that at _all_ , if that means his responses were decent or terrible, but Yuuri just curls his pinkie finger around Victor’s with a tight smile and nods right back. “Right.”

Silence ensues, but it’s not as suffocating as before. The whirlwind of feelings between them has mellowed out to something more neutral, if a little strained, and the only sound that breaks through their peaceful bubble is the fiery beast still circling overhead, lost, confused, and annoyed — like a big, dumb, deadly fly that can’t figure out how to exit a window that’s wide open. 

But the dread’s subsided now, as if it were a dam that burst wide open and the water’s finally settled into the soil of the earth, soaked up and long gone. All that’s left over is a tentative awkwardness, one Victor still wants to break. He wants them to be _comfortable_ around each other.

Victor lets his eyes wander and takes note of the small groups huddled together in aisles and corners he can see from his spot on the floor, talking, scrolling through their phones, reading — one group’s even whipped out a deck of cards. 

“Let's play a game,” Victor says. 

Yuuri’s glitter flares a little brighter, like he wasn’t expecting Victor to say anything else to him. “A game?”

“Mhm, a game.”

“What kind of game?” he asks, eyes narrowed in uncertainty. 

Victor hums to himself and gives the building another once over for ideas. I spy would probably be boring. He can’t imagine a conversation like, “I spy something brown,” then, “the bread over there?” being any fun. And a nice, old game of truth or dare likely wouldn’t be very exciting in here either… 

“Ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer honestly,” he finally replies. “And then I’ll ask you something afterwards. We’ll go back and forth.”

Yuuri snorts. “That doesn’t sound like much of a game.”

“It’s a good way to pass the time!” he says with a grin, then knocks their shoulders together. “And to get to know each other a little better.”

Yuuri pauses, deliberating, then finally gives in. “Alright, uh… I go first?” he asks. Victor nods. “... Favorite color?”

Victor throws his head back and groans, definitely _way_ louder than he should while hiding from a dragon. “Oh, _c’mon_! Seriously?”

“What?” Yuuri frowns and Victor rolls his eyes.

“That’s a lame one!”

These kinds of games are for asking what someone’s deepest, darkest secret is, whether or not they’ve had a threesome, or something equally as scandalous… Actually, maybe Victor’s just played this game with Chris one too many times.

“Wh—no it’s not!” Yuuri splutters. “A person’s favorite color says a lot about them! … _I_ think so, anyway…” he trails off.

Victor chuckles, tilting his head side to side as he thinks and feels _very_ pleased as the tension slowly fades away. “Fine.” He shrugs. “Pink.”

“Pink?”

“Well, like… magenta? I guess. Purpley-pink, whatever that is. That cute girl dog from _Blue’s Clues_?” Yuuri scrunches his nose up at the comparison and Victor laughs. “It’s nice! It’s not a color I see a lot either.”

Yuuri opens his mouth like he wants to speak, then closes it again. Victor lets him take his time. 

“That’s the color of your aura, y’know,” he eventually responds.

Victor blinks. He forgot seeing auras was a part of Yuuri’s powers at all. 

“My… What? Really?” he asks dumbly.

“Mhm.” The fairy nods with a minute smile. “Funny that you picked that one.”

“What does magenta mean?” His brows furrow once the question leaves his mouth, and he quickly adds, “Wait, am I allowed to ask that?”

Yuuri laughs, and Victor’s heart beats a little faster. “Of course you can, it’s _your_ aura,” he replies. “It just means, uh… It's a very passionate and powerful color. Kinda like red in a way — full of energy, but less intense… less aggressive?” He squints, searching for the words to describe it. 

“You’re still full of energy, but the violet mixed in is what holds you back and keeps you more… introspective, I guess. Sort of reserved, in a weird way.” He chuckles then and shakes his head. “Actually, I’d even say magenta is associated with more of a quiet energy, but the last thing that comes to mind when I think of you is ‘quiet’.”

It’s felt like so long since Yuuri last teased him, that he doesn’t even mind being called loud or annoying, in whatever polite way the fairy may put it. But Victor can figure out what that “quiet” aspect of his aura really means. He’s not “quiet” as in soft spoken — he’s “quiet” because he keeps everything to himself.

“Wow…” Victor breathes. He looks over at the man beside him, in his blue coat, with his blue glasses, and his blue wings moving gently up and down. “Is yours blue?”

He looks away, bashful, and hums a yes.

“What’s blue mean then?” Yuuri makes a face at that, and Victor takes the hint. “Ah, _that’s_ the question I’m not supposed to ask.” 

Yuuri sighs and tugs on the loose strings at the end of his sleeve. “It means I’m sensitive…” he nearly whispers.

Victor smiles fondly. He could have guessed that. “Nothing wrong with being sensitive! Too many cold-hearted people in this world anyway.”

“Kind of ironic coming from an ice conjurer.”

Victor sees the opportunity and snatches it _right_ up. “My powers may be cold, but you set my heart on fire,” he says with a cheesy grin. 

Victor may not have the guts to ask him out, but he can dish out dumb, flirty lines any day. That’s another thing he’s probably picked up from Chris… Victor needs new friends.

Yuuri part laughs, part coughs into his arm while his face reddens. “That was awful,” he chokes out.

“Mm, made you laugh though!” Victor says, mouth pulling up into a heart shape.

Among the responding emotions that flood his insides, a massive pang of guilt is one of them, but Victor’s not quite sure why… Yuuri doesn’t say anything about it though, so he remains silent for once.

The next hour flies by, with Victor asking any and _every_ question that pops into his head to learn more about the amazing individual currently stuck right beside him. Yuuri’s questions remain simple and subdued for a little while, scared he’ll overstep some sort of boundary, but Victor encourages him to loosen up and he eventually does.

Through their back and forth, Victor learns that Yuuri did, in fact, used to be a figure skater. As much as he would have loved to turn it into a career, his anxiety simply got in the way of making that a possibility — “I’d freak out so much during competition that the ice would crack under my skates.” — but he really _does_ love the career he chose in the end. According to him, it’s a lot more enjoyable than it seems, and he no longer has to deal with his crippling stage fright.

But aside from more serious topics, Victor also gets the answers to questions he’s been _dying_ to hear, and smiles so hard he thinks his face might actually get stuck that way.

(“So… _are_ you a fan?”

“Maybe.”

“Yuuri.”

“My room used to be covered in posters of you… Actually, I still have a few up.”

“Yuuri!”

“And my dog’s full name is Victor.”

“ _Yuuri_!”

“Oh my god, why did I just _tell you that_?!”)

It isn’t until they’re running out of things to ask that Yuuri gains a sudden steely resolve, sitting up straight with his eyebrows furrowed. “Okay, I have a question,” he says.

Victor straightens up too, sensing this is more than just a question for their game. “Yes?”

He has no clue what’s about to be thrown at him, especially since Yuuri seems to have wrangled all of his emotion back just to ask it and Victor can’t feel him at all now — but the _last_ thing he expects to hear is: “How long have you been with your fiancée?” 

Victor blinks. Once. Twice. Three times.

He turns to look behind him, because maybe another person decided to join their game and Victor just hadn’t noticed them yet — how rude of him.

But there’s nobody there…

“My… Wh—uh.” Victor clears his throat. “What?”

“Your fiancée,” he repeats, innocently batting his lashes like _Victor_ is the one asking strange questions about mysterious fiancées.

Victor’s brain suddenly flashes a rainbow screen, a long, annoying _beeeeep_ accompanying the: “Technical difficulties! Please stand by!” while he reboots _slowly_.

He scrambles to look down at his hands, flipping them over, checking for any rings he may be wearing; then runs through his memory, searching for any blank spots he hadn’t noticed before. Did he get drunk with Georgi again and finally blackout this time? Or during the night he sobbed on Chris’s couch?

Did he run away to Vegas in the other world and get married to a blackjack dealer with Elvis Presley as their witness… If he did, he’s _very_ upset that there seems to be no photo evidence; he would’ve loved to see it.

And then his brain finally catches up and he remembers to reply. “I-I’m not following,” he stutters.

“You came in to get her ring fixed?” Yuuri reiterates slowly. “Angela? Or, no… Anya? Do you not remember that—oh no, did you actually get a head injury recently?”

Victor puts his face in his hands.

“Are you _crying_?!” Yuuri squeaks, and Victor hears the fabric of his coat rustling until a gentle hand starts rubbing up and down his back in stilted motions. “I’m sorry! D-did you guys split up? Or, uh…” 

Victor is… having a moment. He thinks _this_ is what it’s like to actually experience every single emotion at once, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the intensity of it kills him and Yuuri both. 

“Yuuri!” he _wails_.

Yuuri jolts and smacks his back a little on accident. “Wh-what?” 

“I don’t—” He whines into his hands, then aggressively rubs them over his face. “I don’t have a fiancée,” he mumbles.

“You… don’t?”

Victor sits up at that and looks at Yuuri with an expression that’s probably… insane. So, exactly how he’s feeling right now. “No! I—that wasn’t… that wasn’t _my_ engagement ring, Yuuri.”

Yuuri’s eyes grow wider and wider. “It… it wasn’t?”

“No!” he replies, just slightly hysterical, and knocks his head against the glass behind him. “It was my _friend’s_ … My rink mate’s,” he clarifies. “It was for his ex-girlfriend and I accidentally dropped it down the sink at a party! I brought it to you to… uh… as a favor for a friend.” Nice save.

Apparently that’s Yuuri’s cue to put his own face in his hands, because he does exactly that, then somehow sinks even _further_ against the wall. His pent up emotion unfurls, and Victor is suddenly feeling so _much_ he thinks he might be sick.

“Yuuri?” he asks, apprehensive and scooting closer.

“I’m so stupid,” Yuuri groans. “I’m so stupid. Phichit’s gonna _kick my ass_.”

Victor frowns. “Why would he…?” He shakes his head and moves on. “You’re not _stupid_! I didn’t mention any details, so it’s kinda my fault. It was just a misunderstanding.”

A _major_ misunderstanding, Victor realizes like a slap to the face. If Yuuri’s caught on to his flirting — which he’s sure he has; Victor’s just _not_ sure if his own wants are reciprocated… emotions are somehow even messier in this particular situation — then he also assumed Victor’s been seeing someone this _entire_ time. 

Oh god, Yuuri probably thought he was a _dirty cheater_. Is flirting considered cheating? Flirting is definitely considered cheating. _Oh my god_.

“It’s not your fault,” Yuuri whines. “I just assumed, and I thought… well. Nevermind — it’s not important.” 

_It’s totally important_ , Victor wants to say. _Everything you have to say is important, please keep talking and never stop_ , but he doesn’t.

He’s too caught up on the fact that Yuuri probably thought he was an honest-to-god _bad person_ these past few weeks… flirting with the handyman while he had a fiancée at home— _ugh_. He lets them both sit for a good five minutes without saying a word, allowing the confusion to fully fizzle out.

Victor needs to redeem himself — _that’s_ what he needs to do. The misunderstanding Victor had been _way_ off about has finally been cleared up, they’re here alone (somewhat) with no interruptions for what Victor assumes will be another hour or so… He can do this. 

_Ask him, ask him, ask him_ … 

“Actually,” Victor starts, his breath catching in his throat when Yuuri looks up, “... the only reason I came in that day was to ask—”

“Alright, it’s gone.” Seung-gil appears out of thin air and Victor grimaces when he slams his head against the refrigerator in shock. Yuuri gasps and reaches over to cradle his head. Victor tries not to die.

“Nothing’s damaged and nobody got hurt,” he continues, ignoring Victor’s reaction completely and _still_ looking bored out of his mind. “I think it was just lost and curious about the town down here and…” He looks down at them with an eyebrow raised. “Nevermind. Whatever. Come to the front and I’ll ring you guys up.”

Victor stares for a second, because all he wants to do now is get to his feet and yell, “you ruined my moment, _how dare you_!” but that would undoubtedly cause a scene, and Yuuri probably wouldn’t appreciate it very much… so he just nods mechanically and gets to his feet, Yuuri doing the same by his side.

As they stand, their bones creak and their joints ache from sitting on the hard floor for so long, but they follow the man up to the register nonetheless, all while Victor curses his terrible, _terrible_ timing.

They make their purchases and exchange pleasantries with the worker who barely acknowledges them, then suddenly they’re back outside, squinting from the glare of the sun like it’ll melt their eyeballs if they’re out here any longer.

Victor feels like a hermit emerging from his cave after years of living in darkness, when really he was just stuck in a dingy grocery store for an hour and had a certain golden opportunity ripped right out of his hands. 

Perhaps he’s been cursed with bad luck.

“I didn’t expect my shopping trip to be so eventful.” Victor chuckles.

The town is sunny and warm, the nice atmosphere only slightly dampened by the smell of something burning, and when Victor looks over, he notices a plume of smoke rising from a blackened patch of grass, though that seems to be the extent of the damage.

Yuuri rocks back and forth on his feet, smiling while his bags swing from his hands. “Me neither.” He laughs and brings an occupied hand up to awkwardly adjust his glasses. “The one time I leave the shop, and a dragon flies through.”

With the sunshine dancing across his face, Yuuri looks radiant and beautiful, practically shimmering under the light while his wings twinkle along with him. Victor’s heart just can’t take it, and he goes to reply, but Yuuri surprisingly continues. “Y’know, I think that was the first conversation we’ve had that didn’t involve me fixing something for you,” he notes with a teasing smile.

 _Oh… this is it_ , Victor thinks with a start. This _is my chance to ask him out — right here, right now_. 

The conversation’s come to a close, but this is the perfect opportunity to jump in, smooth and charming, and offer to extend it further, ask him on a date to a lovely restaurant in the next town over and shower him with gifts and affection like he’s been dying to.

Except… that’s not what he does.

Scratch that whole “bad luck” thing… Victor’s just an idiot.

With this ethereal fairy before him, every debonair bone in his body miraculously disappears like magic, leaving him clumsy and stuttering. And while Yuuri looks up at him with those sweet, expectant eyes, Victor reaches up to the black clip stuck in his braid and snaps it in half.

Yuuri’s eyes confusedly follow his movements, and he takes the clip automatically when Victor hands it over without thinking. The fairy stares down at the broken plastic in bewilderment.

 _Victor_ , his conscience screams from within, _what the hell was_ that?

And just as he’s about to stammer out some barely coherent apology and an, “at least it’ll give me an excuse to see you again!” Yuuri looks up at him like Victor’s the craziest person he’s ever met… but his smile is blinding.  
  


* * *

  
(Yuuri fixes the clip in under a minute right there in front of the store. It was worth a shot, Victor thinks. But in the end, he _still_ doesn't ask him out.)  
  


* * *

  
The rink is empty and the nighttime air is cold. Victor revels in it.

He leaps, he spins, he jumps, and he falls; torn between disappointed and delighted as the frigid air bites at his cheeks in a way that would make most people wince, but has his magic exploding in turn. 

In a flurry of snowflakes, he dances. 

His interaction with Yuuri some days ago hadn’t gone as planned, but in hindsight, that was to be expected. That seems to be a recurring theme between the two of them, at least on Victor’s end.

His skates slice and hiss against the ice under his feet, a beautifully scraped sheet dazzling under the fluorescent rink lights.

Victor’s always been good with words. It’s a skill you develop whether you like it or not when you become something of a celebrity, and it’s a skill Victor’s always been grateful for. 

He can talk himself out of any situation he doesn’t want to be in, have people falling over themselves with a practiced line and a meaningless wink, make any interviewer hang off his every word during flashy events. 

But Yuuri is… Yuuri. And Victor is far from immune to the allure he unknowingly radiates at all times, yanking him in so completely. 

Yuuri is kind, and beautiful, and stubborn, a glittering light shining bright and magnificent through Victor’s mundane life. Chris was right, the ice will only help him so much… He needs a change. Something new, something lovely — something with wings and dorky blue glasses.

He jumps into a sit spin and lets the world twirl around him, his hair blowing back as a burst of snow encircles his body, wrapping him in an icy tornado.

His mind buzzes pleasantly, reaching out to keep his powers moving while his skin prickles with goosebumps and a bead of sweat trickles down his forehead — then he releases the tension and stands. 

The snowstorm erupts around him in an explosion of white, his head thrown back and chest heaving as one arm crosses his torso and the other points out toward the endless rows of empty seats. It’s not even _close_ to what he’ll pull off during the show, but it leaves him feeling just as exhilarated.

_How do I get a message across to the one man who renders me speechless?_

The festival’s tomorrow. He thinks he has an idea.  
  


**+one.**

* * *

  
The festival brings with it a feeling Victor isn’t used to.

Nerves. Not just any nerves, no, that’s normal, but: _Oh my god, I’m going to be sick_ , nerves.

The sun has long begun her descent, and the sky is painted in a wash of pink and orange, pairing nicely with the flames lined up in a circle above the rink.

Laughing, yelling, and lively conversation rings out throughout the air from up and down the town, booths, art, and dancing as far as the eye can see. Due to its size, the rink is tucked away near the far end of the festivities, sitting in a hollowed out chunk of earth and surrounded by hundreds of seats, every single one filled up by now.

The smell of booze, food, and magic tickles his nose as an ice dancing pair from a town hours away steps out onto the ice for a more fun and humorous routine, their performance set right before Victor’s own; he can hear the crowd’s reactions already.

And instead of warming up like he usually does, like he _should_ be doing, Victor is sitting behind the backdrop on the sidelines with his head in his hands.

He hears somebody walk up beside him, the feeling of intense warmth near his body already giving away who it is. “You’re freaking me out,” Mila said.

“ _Mmmphhh_ …” Good enough. Victor can’t string more than three words together right now. 

Mila slumps down on the bench next to him, still winded from her performance earlier. Victor had been too… _busy_ to watch the others, but made sure to catch Mila’s, standing guard just in case she somehow interfered with the flames lighting the rink during her routine and started a deadly forest fire. 

Mila may be talented, but she’s still young, leaving her powers rather unpredictable at times. The ice on the rink floor is under a constant cooling spell now just because of her. 

Her performance was filled with the kind of spiritedness and vibrancy she’s known for, speedy steps and outrageous flexibility, spinning inside streaks of flame like ribbons swirling around her body — though that’s as much as she’s allowed to use for now. Her outfit was skin tight and black, and vaguely reminded Victor of a sparkly Russian spy. He didn’t mention that though, opting to just cheer her on instead so he didn’t get his eyebrows singed off. 

“Oh no, did you freeze Yuri to his chair again?” Mila asks, dread in her voice as she lightly tugs on Victor’s hair. “He might _actually_ kill you this time, you know that, right? Sic a whole pack of wolves on you.”

The laugh that pulls out of him sounds slightly hysterical, but it’s something. “No,” he sighs, then finally sits up. “I’m just hoping a certain someone is in the audience tonight… while also freaking out over the thought of them _actually_ being in the audience.”

“Ahhh,” Mila replies knowingly, “fairy boy.”

Victor frowns and sticks his nose up. “His name’s _Yuuri_.” 

“Right, my bad,” she replies, mindlessly fluffing up the ruffles on his shirt. “Our Yuri’s banned us from saying his name because he hates that they have the same one.”

Victor whines and pushes her hand away. “You guys talk about him?”

“Only to make fun of your obnoxious pining.” She smirks.

“... _Mean_. All of you, laughing while I suffer.”

“Not mean! It’s totally warranted.” She beams and reaches out to pinch his cheek like she’s his grandmother and not, in fact, only eighteen years old. “It’s just funny; we’ve just never seen you like this before… Old man Nikiforov’s finally fallen in _looove_.”

“I am not _that_ —!” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please spend less time with Yuri. Next time I see him, I’m locking him in a dog crate.”

Mila snickers, though Victor pretends not to hear it over the roar of the crowd.

“Yuuri’s just special,” he says simply, like that even covers _half_ of how he feels. “I’m not really sure how he feels about me though. It’s… complicated.”

That’s one way to put it. Now that they’ve established the fact that Yuuri doesn’t _actually_ hate Victor with every fiber of his being and he’s no longer banned from the store, nothing else has been made much clearer, unfortunately.

One would think that the person you have feelings for practically oozing emotion at all times would make it obvious whether or not you should just go for it — but that’s far from reality. Victor may _experience_ them, but that doesn’t mean he _understands_ them; the reasoning behind the influx of emotion is usually lost on Victor completely. Sorting out one’s own emotions is difficult enough as it is. 

Sure, when Victor’s being a shameless flirt he feels the giddiness that accompanies a new crush rolling in, but that doesn’t necessarily _mean_ anything — maybe Yuuri’s just flattered over the compliments, not interested. Because alongside those cheerful sensations is almost always something like hesitation, nervousness, a feeling Victor can only interpret as _pulling away_. And that’s definitely not reassuring; of course, there’s always the possibility that those aren’t actually directed at him at all and Victor has nothing to be worried about, but there’s also the chance that they _are_ — and _that_ is what’s ultimately holding him back.

Even when Victor tried to convince himself that Yuuri _must_ like him if he had — _has_ — posters of him up on his bedroom walls, all he could think about was Yuuri viewing him as nothing more than an idol or a hero, and continued spiraling into a pit of worry over whether or not he had been coming off as intimidating or scary this entire time, freaking the poor fairy out while trying to figure out how to ask him on a _date_ , when all Yuuri did was look up to him… 

He would just hate to finally muster up the courage to ask outright only to get rejected in the end, all while scolding himself for not listening to what he was feeling before and just dropping it.

Though, he supposes that doesn’t matter now, and he should probably scrap that worry all together while he can — since he’s practically going to confess his love in front of hundreds in just a few minutes and, _oh_ , here comes that nausea again… 

Mila looks at him for a long while.“I take back what I said about you being old. You’re talking like you’re sixteen.” She rolls her eyes. “Victor, _everybody_ likes you.”

“That’s stupid!” he groans, trying to stomp down the urge to rub his face in exasperation; his mother did his makeup earlier, and he’d hate to ruin all her hard work. “... And Yuuri’s not everybody.”

Mila snorts. “Okay, I’ll spend less time with Yuri if _you_ spend less time with Georgi… Deal?” She doesn’t wait for a response, and nods. “Deal. You go up in a few by the way.”

His ears tune back in to the boisterous crowd and the distinct sound of blades against ice, the music slowly building to its end, and stands with a sigh. Mechanically, he goes through a handful of simple stretches, allowing his body to fall into the routine of warming up before a performance — he did his major warm-ups earlier, so there’s not much to focus on other than keeping his body moving and trying to physically expel his nervousness along with the snowflakes falling from his hands and feet as he shakes them out.

Just a few more minutes — a few more minutes until he skates his heart out on the ice, a few more minutes until he tries to convey a message to somebody he only _hopes_ is here right now; and just a handful after that until he feels like the world’s biggest idiot, or on top of the world.

“Do you think it’d be easier to woo him if you got naked on the ice instead?” Mila asks, waddling up behind him with her skates still on. “I’ll be your wingman and light your clothes on fire if you want.”

“My _parents_ are out there,” he replies, horrified.

Just days before, Victor briefly considered commissioning a special outfit to go along with his plan, but didn’t want to be the reason behind any mental breakdowns in the costuming department, so he went ahead and stuck with the original.

While Mila looks like a glamorous spy, Victor looks a bit like an angelic pirate in his white, ruffled shirt, but he’s not complaining. The collar and cuffs sparkle with embedded crystalline jewels, and attached to his white leggings is a short skirt on the back and side for an extra flare when he spins. He even left his hair down this time, with only two thin braids pulled back and clipped in place behind his head. 

Mila laughs. “Just an idea. I’m sure your skating and that pretty face of yours will be enough for him though,” she coos, and suddenly Victor’s being manhandled by a teenager, tripping over his own feet like his legs have gone numb — which is slightly alarming, considering he’s about to be balancing on what are essentially knife shoes in just a few seconds — while she ushers him toward the rink side with the other skaters. 

The cacophony of cheers and chatter only gets louder as they round the backdrop, and then Victor’s being shoved forward, helplessly flailing for the railing in front of him. “Go get your man!”

The skaters from towns over all turn to take in the scene Mila’s causing and Victor just tries his hardest to smile, right as she disappears in a cloud of smoke to sit somewhere up in the audience instead. So much for moral support… 

He lets his smile drop and goes back to fretting once the skaters suddenly clam up and turn away, seemingly all under the impression that they’re not allowed to stare at “ _The_ Victor Nikiforov” for more than five seconds at a time. For once, it’s a reaction he appreciates

The pair skaters take their leave, and Victor tries not to shriek when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Did you warm up?” Yakov’s gruff voice sounds beside him.

Victor shakes himself and turns to look at his coach, who’s as grumpy and stern as ever. “What do you think?” he replies absently, chewing on his nail and turning back to the ice. It’s empty now save for the staff cleaning up charms and roses thrown from the stands. “Of course I warmed up.”

He sees Yakov raise a hand out of the corner of his eye and squawks, jumping back a foot to avoid getting flicked in the head. Yakov grumbles and shoves his hand back into the pocket of his coat. “Don’t sass me,” he huffs. “You’re nervous.”

Victor hums and keeps his eyes trained ahead once he finds his footing again, trying to force himself into the mental zone he usually enters before these, but it doesn’t seem to be clicking now.

“Is it because of that dumb boy?” Yakov asks with a withering look. 

_That_ makes Victor whip around. “He’s _not_ —”

“I don’t care.” Yakov holds a hand up, and Victor bites his tongue. “Just don’t let it affect your skating. This is a big night, especially for you, I know.”

Something settles in Victor’s stomach once he hears that, cements the belief inside that, yeah… He has to do this. And out of any “pep talk” his coach could’ve possibly given him, _those_ are the words that calm him down the most — that push him forward and right into the zone he was searching for.

He hears the announcer call his name overhead, introducing him onto the ice as the final act, and the crowd whoops in response.

“Aw, but Yakov!” Victor chirps, always up for annoying him every chance he gets. “That’s exactly what I plan on doing!”

Yakov’s expression hardens. “Vitya.”

Victor jumps forward and kisses him on the cheek, leaving the man stunned and impossibly irritated. “Wish me luck!” he says, then shoves his skate guards into Yakov’s cold hands.

When his blades kiss the ice and the cheers dwindle to a respectful silence, his resolve wavers — just a little. When he skates to the center of the ice to take his starting pose, his heart thunders away in his chest like a manic hummingbird. When his arms cross along his torso and his eyes close, he cracks one open just to scan the crowd, only to feel his mood drop. He doesn’t find what he was searching for, but at the first tinkle of music, he moves.

The song he chose is simple — light and pretty, lilting and playful, picking up in just the right places. 

After all, this isn’t a competition. He didn’t have to think hard over what music to pick, didn’t have to bother Yakov with song after song until he found the perfect one, as this performance is just to show off; be as extravagant as you can be, and excite the audience with it too. 

So where the song lacks meaning, Victor pours his own into it. 

His legs follow the straightforward movements of a basic routine with no magic and no extravagance, waiting for his cue to move forward, and when it comes, he pushes — closes his eyes and flies. 

He slides across the rink, steadily gaining momentum, and jumps, twirls, a snowstorm in his hands as his arms raise in a flourish and the pounding in his chest eases, his emotions less hazy. He glides with an easy grace ingrained in his bones by now, not even bothering to count the number of rotations in his spins — just lets himself _move_. 

He thinks of this first section as a test run, and as he feels himself flying, he bundles it up inside himself and pushes it outward, an abstract calling of: _This is for you_. _Are you watching?_

His steps bleed into one another, moving effortlessly from one move to the next, flowing and soaring, the audience certainly fascinated. But he only cares about one person’s reaction tonight.

When the music kicks up a notch, so does he.

He feels his mind shifting gears, the mental preparation for more magic to come kicking in automatically. He reaches within himself and uses his focus to reach within the ice too, yanking a spike out of the rink floor. He hops, spins, jumps off, repeats.

The music builds and builds and so do the spikes, pushing him up in varying heights while his blood rushes, electrified, through his veins. Even all the way down here, it’s like he can hear the crowd collectively gasping, holding their breath, waiting. 

The music picks up and he doesn’t hesitate to rush forward, moves with the music as he pulls and pulls and _pulls_ , until he’s being lifted off the ground completely. The spike steadily builds, and Victor shuts his eyes once more, his mind buzzing with the arrangement of balancing spells to keep himself still. 

A suicide spin is dangerous enough with a partner to keep you upright, and doing it alone is something only Victor’s ever done — but when the spell clicks in his head, he knows he’s nailed it before it’s even started.

The spike grows to fifty feet and the world around him steadily quiets as he nearly touches the trees. He calms his breathing and wraps his arms around himself, the music only registering as a distant hum from all the way up here, but doesn't need to hear it clearly anyway — he already has the timing memorized. As a bead of sweat trickles down his forehead, he feels his body lock into place, and he spins.

He breathes out, slow and steady, and lets his mind do the work. The spell doubles, one for acceleration on top of balance, and he speeds up. His skates drill and drill and drill, whittling away at the ice with the blades on his feet until the noise of the crowd rushes back in.

His hair twirls around him, ice shavings flying through the air as he descends, and when he finally reaches the ground with an echoing crack, he throws his arms out and _feels_.

Gone is the wooden, emotionless skater he’s felt himself becoming — the skater he’s seen written about in one too many articles, all about his performances being technically stunning yet void of all passion, how he’s losing his touch. Not anymore. 

The crowd is ecstatic, but he doesn’t let it distract him as he continues on. 

The music slows, long, elegant notes drawn out to let him catch his breath and loosen his focus, bring him back to reality before the big ending. 

He skates fear, he skates freedom, he skates longing, he skates _love_. He feels and feels and feels, a palpable affection pulsing strong and warm and pushing out to the world around him. And even if the majority of the audience can’t physically experience what’s being thrown their way, Victor knows they can probably tell anyway.

He skillfully moves through his step sequence, not his strong point, but strong enough, and lets the music move him, waiting for the next section to start. And when he picks up, he feels all eyes on him, tracing his every movement as he glides to the appropriate side of the rink and the music builds to its peak.

His body vibrates under the onslaught of so many new sensations, body and mind, and he grips that feeling tight as he soars. He jumps and throws his arms out, and a blizzard escapes his body, propelling him high, higher, until he’s twirling in the air like a snow angel taking flight. The chaos below silences once more as he shoots upward, his pulse spiking once he reaches the terrifying yet exhilarating end, and lets go.

His powers cease, and he free falls from an unimaginable height, the wind whistling in his ears and his stomach jolting with the feeling of riding the world’s deadliest roller coaster. He hears the expected yelps and gasps from onlookers below and can’t help but grin in response — _this_ is why he loves this move so much; it’s shocking, it’s insane, and it expresses his current state perfectly. 

Just as he reaches his mark, twenty feet above the rink, he pulls up and allows his powers to stop the fall like a phantom parachute. The force of the element escaping his hands buoys him upward, and a snowstorm surrounds the stadium as he twirls through the air. He spins fast and delicate, until he finally touches the rink floor as the music’s crescendo reaches its end.

His skates clink against the ice and his body drips with sweat as he catches his breath, one arm crossed over his torso and the other pointing outward with his eyes closed, all while the final note rings through the air and he finally allows his emotions to explode — pushing, pushing, _pushing_ , a message he desperately hopes is getting across.

Silence. 

He opens his eyes, and across the rink, at the end of Victor’s finger, is Yuuri — small in the distance, sweet and disheveled, and gripping onto the rink board. 

The crowd breaks out of their awed silence and explodes, loud enough to shake Victor to the bone. And it isn’t until then, that Victor realizes he’s crying.

He frantically wipes at his face and his grin is broad and wild as flowers, charmed necklaces, and Makkachin plushies rain down on him from the stands — one is even brought to life and slides across the ice on its knitted paws. 

When he looks up again, Yuuri is still there, stare boring into his own from all the way across the rink. And when Yuuri takes off running to the rink entrance, Victor doesn’t hesitate to follow.

He moves across the ice so fast you’d think his power was superhuman speed, and his heart thumps away with an overwhelming excitement. Their eyes never leave each other as they speed forward, and Yuuri pushes through anyone and everyone that gets in his way to make it to the entrance in record time, leaving a trail of disgruntled citizens in his wake.

Victor’s just barely made it when he opens his arms wide and shouts, “Yuuri!”

Yuuri responds by tackling him onto the ice and knocking the wind out of them both. Victor’s mind is running at high speed and barely gives him a chance to process what’s happening even as they’re flying through the air, but he feels a gentle hand reach around to cradle the back of his head just as a pair of warm lips press against his own and they smack hard against the ice, all in a matter of seconds.

It’s a lot less graceful and cinematic than Yuuri likely pictured beforehand, grunting into each other's mouths on impact, a terrible ache blooming in Victor’s back and shoulders, but Victor presses back fervently. 

He wraps his arms around Yuuri in turn, his wings smooth like rose petals under his fingers — and he melts, melts, _melts_ into the icy floor. The emotion hitting him is almost unbearable, and he loves it. It’s smothering, all-consuming, and so _happy_ , that Victor feels like crying all over again.

Yuuri is the first to pull away, and when he does, his gaze is… crazy. He looks insane, hair ruffled, pupils dilated, and his smile growing wider with each passing second. He moves his hand out from under Victor’s head to cup his face in his palms, and Victor smiles right back.

“So you do like me?” Victor asks… just to be sure.

Yuuri blinks, then laughs, high and free. “I… wow… You’re kind of an idiot.”

“Yuuri! Don’t ruin the moment!” 

Yuuri rolls his eyes fondly and squishes Victor’s cheeks with his hands. “Of _course_ I like you. Did you think I—” They both look up at the sound of a camera shutter, Victor looking utterly ridiculous and Yuuri completely stunned. “Oh my god, I really just did that,” he says mostly to himself, finally taking a moment to look around them. 

Victor tries his hardest to push down the petulant whine over Yuuri's attention shifting elsewhere.

A crowd has formed just around them now, curious onlookers leaning over the boards to see the dramatic scene unfolding below, cameras of all kinds flashing brightly in their faces, and reporters pushing through to get a peek for themselves. 

Yuuri’s head whips around in every direction, his face steadily growing pinker and his emotions shifting rapidly.

“You did!” Victor exclaims, and Yuuri looks down again, their noses touching. “I never would’ve pictured my Yuuri being so romantic.”

“Your Yuuri…” he breathes, almost in disbelief. If they weren’t pressed against each other, Victor would’ve had to strain to hear it. 

Under the light of the flames above the rink and the random flashes beside them, Yuuri’s eyes shimmer brilliantly, and Victor is left breathless all over again. He reaches up to brush Yuuri’s hair back, feels the silkiness between his fingers, and Yuuri sighs.

“I skated that for you, you know,” he says softly.

Yuuri nods, knocking their foreheads together. “I know.” He laughs. “I felt it.”

As Victor’s eyes dance across every picturesque detail of Yuuri’s face, the odd freckle on his nose and cheeks, the rosy color of his lips, it hits him. _This_ … _This_ is it. It’s stupid to ask now, of course it is, but he _has_ to, is _dying_ to… 

“Wait!” he shouts, and Yuuri startles. “This is my chance! Yuuri Katsuki—” He fumbles awkwardly with their hands until they’re clasped together between them, cold and clammy, and Yuuri moves to sit up.

“Will you…” He takes a deep breath. “Go on a date with me?” he finally, _finally_ asks, voice loud and clear.

Yuuri’s face says it all.

He doesn’t even offer a verbal response, just headbutts Victor in the process of planting a wonderfully messy kiss against his lips, humming in delight while laughter bubbles between them and their audience cheers right along with their ridiculous PDA.

Victor doesn’t see it until he picks up the paper the next day, but on the front page of _Wandermere Daily News_ is a photo of them — kissing on the rink floor with glitter raining down above their heads, in the shape of a massive, pink heart.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Yes, even in this universe they're terrible at communicating and Skate Their Feelings™ instead. Did you expect anything else from these idiots? Also, I felt like this took me FOREVER to write, but I'm already planning fics I want to do next, so look out for those! Thank you all for reading ❤ (And once again, because my first chapter note got deleted: Yuuri's powers here were inspired by The Rules for Lovers by ADreamingSongbird here on AO3.)
> 
> **Comments & kudos are greatly appreciated (especially comments -- lemme know what you think)!!!**
> 
> Little side thing about this fic that may not have been clear:
> 
> \- Think of Wandermere as a world hidden in plain sight. If an average person with no magical ability walked into Wandermere, it'd look like an empty forest to them, when there's really a whole universe just hidden away. All magic cities and forests are cloaked in "shadow spells" to keep people out, and are usually hidden deep in forests or mountains due to the off chance that someone figures out how to do magic well enough and stumbles upon the world themselves. It's happened before, many many many years ago! Which is why magic cities are so uncommon; they'd be easier to discover, and most people don't want to take that risk.
> 
> That's all! If you wanna talk about my fic, any fics, or just wanna follow me, here's my [ YOI tumblr](https://nagachikaz.tumblr.com/).


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